Westminster funeral for Lord Fitt

The funeral of former SDLP leader Lord (Gerry) Fitt is to take place in London today.

Lord Fitt died last Friday after suffering a decline in health in recent months.

Tuesday's service will take place at Westminster Cathedral which will be attended by all five of the former politicians children and grandchildren as well as leading politicians.

An hour beforehand, a special Mass will be held in Crossgar, Co Down, where Lord Fitt was married in the 1940s. His wife Anne passed away after a short illness in 1996.

Lord Fitt was born in Belfast on 9 April 1926 and educated at the Christian Brothers School.

Between 1941 and 1953 he served in the merchant navy before finding his feet in the political movement with his socialist views.

In 1966 he won the West Belfast Westminster seat as a Republican Labour Party candidate, a seat he held until 1983 when Gerry Adams won the seat for Sinn Fein.

In August 1970 he became the first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and in 1974 became deputy chief executive of the short-lived Power-Sharing Executive created under the Sunningdale Agreement.

However, his political outlook, in which he was a opponent of republican violence, saw him become a target for republican's who attacked his north Belfast home in 1976.

He quit the leadership of the SDLP in 1979.

(MB/SP)