Paddy Devlin, who died on August 15th aged 74, after a lengthy illness, was one of the most remarkable figures in modern Irish public life. By any standards his lifetime political journey, commencing as an involuntary guest of King George in a Belfast prison during the second World War, to being awarded the CBE by his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, in the honours list at the beginning of this year, is an extraordinary one.
But he was also a larger than life figure: a big, burly, rumbustious man with forthright and passionate views which he argued articulately and forcefully.
Although he was professedly anti-violence, this did not stop him from threatening, in salty language, those of his colleagues or opponents who were tardy in agreeing with him. Reginald Maudling, while British home secretary prior to internment in 1971, attracted his wrath and was assaulted with a rolled up copy of the Daily Express.
Sometimes his closest colleagues too were the objects of his belligerence. When they differed with him, the response would usually be a tirade punctuated with swear words and the threat of fisticuffs outside. When he was in one of those moods, it was always better to agree with him, recalls one of his former associates.
Small wonder then that a senior civil servant once described him as "the coarsest man who had ever faced the British government."
Yet his undoubtedly aggressive behaviour, later put down to undiagnosed diabetes, only served to further endear him to all who had dealings with him. They recognised that behind the bellicose facade, there beat a big, warm, compassionate heart in a man who was honest, sincere and deeply committed to securing social justice, prosperity and peace for all, especially the working classes, where his own roots lay. Above all, he was a man committed to reconciliation, tolerance and political agreement.
Patrick Joseph Devlin, the eldest of seven children, was born on March 8th, 1925 in the family home at Lady Street in the Falls Road area of Belfast, a densely populated area of slum housing where poverty was rife. His parents were highly political and argued their rival views, especially at election times. Thomas, his father, who worked in a local flour mill, was a Labour supporter while his mother, Annie, was a fervent nationalist.
However, when their son made his first political move it was into the ranks of the outlawed republican movement. By the time the second World War was underway, he was gathering information about strategic targets and military installations in Belfast, which the IRA transmitted to the Nazis. He always regretted this for he feared it had been used to plan the massive air raids, which devastated the city in 1941.
His activities brought him to the attention of the RUC and he was arrested and interned in 1942 in a Belfast prison where he remained for three years until the end of the war. They proved to be the most formative years of his life. Mainly through reading, he rejected the republican cause and its commitment to violence as futile. Instead, he developed what was to be a life-long commitment to socialism and the labour and trades union movements.
After his release he spent a short time working at a car factory in Coventry, but he soon returned home and got a job as a milk roundsman. He could not make ends meet however, for he was too soft-hearted to force the poor families he served to pay up. His father came to the rescue and he followed him into the flour mill as a storeman.
By 1956, Paddy Devlin had established himself as a leading figure in the trades union movement and that year won his first election, gaining a seat on Belfast City Council. In the 1960s he forged the political vision he was to pursue for the rest of his life - a non-sectarian labour party, with the Catholic and Protestant working classes united against the bosses in conventional left-right politics. He was also a founder member of the civil rights movement, whose objectives neatly dovetailed with his own political philosophy and agenda. Characteristically, he was at the forefront of the clashes as the police tried to baton the protestors off the streets on the orders of the unionist government at Stormont.
In 1969 he became an MP, representing Falls, and in the following years banded with Gerry Fitt, John Hume, Austin Currie, Ivan Cooper and Paddy O'Hanlon to form the Social Democratic and Labour party. After the Stormont parliament was prorogued in 1972 and direct rule was imposed, Paddy Devlin's trade-union bargaining skills came into use as he played a key role in the run-up to the mould-breaking Sunningdale agreement in 1973.
The early months of 1974 were the high point of his life and career when he was appointed minister for health and social services in the new power-sharing executive.
Stormont had never had a minister like him. "Just call me Paddy," he told his astonished civil servants who were also warned that they were liable to hear a regular barrage of uncensored expletives. His methods were unorthodox too and they soon became used to him leaving his office to wander the corridors in his shirt sleeves with his gun in a shoulder holster, looking for an official to solve a problem. Not for him the structured meeting with officials summoned to his presence.
When the executive was brought down by the loyalist general strike after only a few months, he struggled, increasingly in vain, to recapture the spirit of Sunningdale but his instinctive pragmatism was defeated by the deep-seated intransigence on both sides.
By 1977, his contempt for what he called "the narrow nationalism" of the SDLP prompted a final rift and he left the party. Although he continued to dabble in labour politics, this point effectively marked the end of his political career.
However, he now had the time to devote himself to other interests. He played a vital role in saving Belfast's historic Linenhall Library and was especially proud of his role in persuading the council to award the poet, John Hewitt, the freedom of the city.
He also turned his hand to journalism and writing - reviving Sam Thompson's controversial play Over the Bridge, which dealt with sectarianism in the shipyard, at the Arts Theatre in 1985. In the same year, he was awarded a master of science degree from the Cranfield College of Technology for a thesis about the Outdoor Relief riots in Belfast in the 1930s which was later published in book form as Yes We Have No Bananas. For 10 years until 1985, he was also northern organiser for the Irish Transport and General Workers Union and increased its membership fourfold.
Failing eyesight, a side-effect of his diabetic condition, tragically curbed his work but he did manage to publish an autobiography, Straight Left, in 1993 which won an Irish Times literary award. In 1996 his great contribution to political and community service was acknowledged by both Queen's University, Belfast and the University of Ulster, which awarded him honorary degrees. In the New Year's honours list last January, he was awarded the CBE, which he decided to accept as recognition of the labour and trades union movement in Northern Ireland.
Paddy Devlin is survived by his wife Theresa (nee Duffy) whom he married in 1950 and their five children, Anne, Moya, Patricia, Joe and Peter.
Patrick Joseph Devlin: born 1925; died August, 1999