Gerry Fitt to be laid to rest in London tomorrow

The funeral of Gerry Fitt, the founding former leader of Northern Ireland’s Social Democratic and Labour Party is being held in London tomorrow.

Lord Fitt, 79, who suffered from a heart condition, died at a relative’s home in England last week after several months of declining health.

The funeral is being held at Westminster Cathedral with a private family burial afterwards.

Lord Fitt’s five daughters and grandchildren will all take a role in the service during which Danny Boy will be played by a violist.

A piper from the Irish Guards will play a traditional lament as the coffin is carried from the Cathedral.

An hour before the London funeral Lord Fitt’s elderly sisters will attend a funeral mass being said at the church in Crossgar, Co Down, where he married his wife Ann in the 1940s after he returned to Northern Ireland from war-time duty with the Merchant Navy on convoys to Russia.