A forward-thinking unionist minister in the first failed attempt at a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland 30 years ago, Mr Basil McIvor, has died. He was 79.
Mr McIvor collapsed and died while playing golf in Ballynahinch, Co Down.
He dropped out of politics after the power-sharing executive set up following the Sunningdale Conference foundered in the mid-1970s.
After studying law at Queen's University, Belfast, he served as a barrister before entering the old unionist-dominated Parliament at Stormont as a Belfast MP.
He was minister of community relations when the parliament was closed and direct rule imposed in 1972.
He was one of the unionist team at the 1973 Sunningdale conference which established the power-sharing administration at Stormont at the start of the next year.
He took the role of education minister and announced a scheme for shared schools for Catholic and Protestant children, but it was never implemented because of the collapse of the executive.
He later became active in the drive for integrated education and in 1981 he became the first chairman of Lagan College, Northern Ireland's first integrated school.
After leaving politics Mr McIvor sat as a resident magistrate for many years. In 1987 four unionist MPs tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling for his removal from the bench on grounds he had shown bias against unionists and Orangemen in a case in Co Antrim.