Debate contribution: Tributes: Mr Joe Byrne and Mrs Mary Bradley

Debate contribution by Mr Matthew O'Toole on 12 January 2026.

MLA

Mr Matthew O'Toole

Party at the time

Social Democratic and Labour Party

Date

12 January 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Assembly Business

Heading

Tributes: Mr Joe Byrne and Mrs Mary Bradley

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5311130

Read the official Assembly record

Text

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for your kind words and for offering Members the opportunity to pay their respects to two giants of public service; people who embodied the heart of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and the values that created and still animate our party and movement today. As you said, Mr Speaker, Joe and Mary died at the same time over the Christmas break. They served together in the Assembly. In a sense, they came from different traditions in the SDLP in that one represented an urban community and the other was a passionate rural champion, but collectively they represented the soul of our party: public service through commitment to the common good, cross-community politics, dialogue and serving the people who elected you. Joe Byrne was an extraordinary public servant. He was born in Aghyaran, a townland outside Strabane; a place about which he was passionate and to which he was always connected. He was a passionate member of the GAA, and, indeed, my father was involved in the Queen's University GAA club with him in the mid-1970s. Joe was a stalwart of the team, and his passion for the GAA was something that he carried throughout his life. He sponsored and organised the first GAA event in Parliament Buildings in 2001. Joe became a member of Omagh District Council in 1993, having been a long-standing SDLP member and activist in Tyrone. He was part of the SDLP's negotiating team that led to the Good Friday Agreement, and he was a key member of the nascent Policing Board. Our party worked hard to establish a new start for policing that could command the respect and trust of the whole community in Northern Ireland, and people such as Joe Byrne did the hard yards to make that happen. Joe went on to be the chairperson of the SDLP between 2009 and 2012. He had two different stints in the Assembly: from 1998 in the first Assembly through to 2003, and he was elected again in 2011. That is dedication. Some might call it gluttony for punishment, but it showed his dedication to his community and the people of West Tyrone — all the people of West Tyrone. The extent of Joe's service and the respect in which he was held across the community is a testament to that. Mr Speaker, we have had words from you, and there have been tributes to Joe Byrne as a giant of public service from across the community in West Tyrone and, indeed, the whole of the North and all of Ireland. On behalf of his colleagues, friends and comrades in the SDLP, I say that we will miss him. I went to his funeral in Killyclogher, which is just outside Omagh, on a wintry day, and the turnout was extraordinary. It was a testament to him. Our thoughts are with Ursula, Aoife, Emer, Eoin and his wider family circle. His values remain with us. Mary Bradley was another extraordinary person who embodied the values of the SDLP. Mary was born in Derry on the Foyle Road, but she made Carnhill her home. She represented Shantallow on Derry City Council not just for years but for an entire generation. As Father Mongan said at her funeral:

"She was the heartbeat of the Carnhill community and the Greater Shantallow area".

She was deeply connected to the community in Derry that she served and loved. She worked for them and championed them at the council and the Assembly, and, right up to her passing, she was known as a community champion. She embodied the connection that our party has historically had with the city of Derry and the community there. Mary's warmth, generosity and kindness were remarked on by everybody who knew her. She was an astonishingly open-hearted person, which was appreciated by those from all parties who served with her in the Assembly. Our former leader, Mark Durkan senior, said of her generosity of spirit that she was bitter and partisan in only one respect, and that was in relation to football teams, because she was a passionate supporter of both Manchester United and Derry City. She was only ever a partisan and tribal figure in her support for those teams. Both of those extraordinary individuals — Joe Byrne and Mary Bradley — embodied something that, we think, is special about our party. Their colleagues and friends in the SDLP and, particularly, the communities that they served in West Tyrone and Derry will mourn and remember them.

More broadly, they represented an outlook that we should all aspire to in public service: the people whom we serve are what matters. They were a constant reminder that what matters is not clicks on social media or controversy in the Chamber but doing right by the people who send us here and devoting every waking hour to improving their lives. I pay tribute to Joe and Mary. Rest in peace.

824 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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