Patrick Joseph "Paddy" Devlin (8 March 1925 – 15 August 1999) was an Irish socialist, labour and civil rights activist and writer. He was a founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a former Stormont MP, and a member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive. Described as a "relentless campaigner against sectarianism", Devlin had once been a member of the IRA but later renounced physical force republicanism to work at transcending sectarian differences through peaceful, socialist and nationalist political means. During the late 1960s he entered local politics in the Belfast City Council and went on to help found the SDLP in 1970 with John Hume, Gerry Fitt, Austin Currie and others. Early life Devlin was born in the Pound Loney in the Lower Falls in West Belfast on 8 March 1925 and lived in the city for almost all his life. His mother was a leading activist in Joe Devlin's (no relation) Nationalist Party machine in the Falls area and Devlin grew up in a highly political household. However his early activism was confined to Fianna Éireann and then the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and as a result he was interned in Crumlin Road Gaol from 1942 to 1945 at age 17. After his release he became convinced that physical force nationalism would not succeed in its goals. Post-war After the war, and in search of work, he spent some time in Portsmouth working as a scaffolder and in Coventry working in the car industry. In Coventry he became interested in Labour and trade union politics and briefly joined the British Labour Party. Returning to Belfast in 1948 he found the local Labour Party split over partition. Under Harry Midgley’s influence the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) had adopted a pro-partition position. In response, many anti-partition Labour activists left the NILP and joined the Irish Labour Party, which was led locally by Jack Beattie who was an MP in Stormont and Westminster. Paddy Devlin joined the Irish Labour Party in 1949. Devlin was elected as the Irish Labour candidate in a council by-election for the Falls ward in 1956 beating Gerry Fitt who fought the election as the Dock Labour Party candidate. Later Catholic Action claimed the Irish Labour Party was infested with communists and ensured the party were effectively wiped out and Devlin lost his seat in 1958. In the same year, in the aftermath