From the late 1980s onwards, Adams was an important figure in the Northern Ireland peace process, initially following contact by the then Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) leader John Hume and subsequently with the Irish and British governments and then other parties.

When Sinn Féin came to nominate its two ministers to the Northern Ireland Executive, for tactical reasons the party, like the SDLP and the Democratic Unionist Party ( DUP ), chose not to include its leader among its ministers.

( When later the SDLP chose a new leader, it selected one of its ministers, Mark Durkan, who then opted to remain in the Committee.

Much of what was contained in the Sunningdale Agreement found its way into the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which was once described by the then deputy leader of the SDLP, Seamus Mallon, as " Sunningdale for slow learners ", a reference to the failed power-sharing deal of 1973.

The Good Friday Agreement ( 1998 ), produced a wholesale reorganisation of inter-community, governmental and policing systems, including a power-sharing executive with David Trimble and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party's ( SDLP ) Seamus Mallon ( later replaced by new party leader Mark Durkan ) as co-chairmen.

From the 1960s, one of his main rivals was civil rights leader and co-founder of the nationalist SDLP, John Hume.

He was the second leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ), a position he held from 1979 until 2001.

* The designation of the party leader was made by the party's congress in the eighteen remaining parties: Austria ( SPÖ ), Bulgaria ( БСП ), Czech Republic ( ČSSD ), Estonia ( SDE ), Finland ( SDP ), Germany ( SPD ), Hungary ( MSZP ), Latvia ( LSDSP ), Lithuania ( SDPL ), Luxembourg ( LSAP ), Malta ( LP ), Poland ( SLD, UP ), Rumania ( PSD ), Slovakia ( SMER-SD ), Slovenia ( SD ), Spain ( PSOE ), Sweden ( SAP ), United-Kingdom / Northern Ireland ( SDLP )

* Former Social Democratic and Labour Party minister in Northern Ireland and deputy SDLP leader, Bríd Rodgers

He was a founder and the first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ), a social democratic and Irish nationalist party.

In August 1970, Fitt became the first leader of a coalition of civil rights and nationalist leaders who created the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ).

In 1979, he was replaced by John Hume as leader of the SDLP and he left the party altogether after he had agreed to constitutional talks with British Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins without any provision for an ' Irish dimension ' and had then seen his decision overturned by the SDLP party conference.

Prominent members of the Executive included former Unionist Prime Minister Brian Faulkner as Chief Executive, SDLP leader Gerry Fitt as Deputy Chief Executive, future Nobel Laureate and SDLP leader John Hume as Minister for Commerce and leader of the Alliance Party Oliver Napier as Legal Minister and head of the Office of Law Reform.

Gerry Fitt, leader of the SDLP, said he had organised a boycott to stop an escalation in violence.

He retained his seat in the 1979 general election, when both the unionist and nationalist votes were split, the former by the intervention of Ernest Baird, leader of the short-lived United Ulster Unionist Party, and the latter by Austin Currie, who defied the official SDLP decision to not contest the seat.

In 1987 the remains of the party merged with Labour Party of Northern Ireland ( formed in 1985 by former SDLP leader Paddy Devlin ), the Ulster Liberal Party and the United Labour Party to form the Labour ' 87 group.

Maguire was challenged by Austin Currie, a local SDLP activist ( and later official candidate ) who disagreed with the party's decision to give Maguire a clear run, whilst the new Ulster Unionist candidate, Raymond Ferguson, was challenged by Ernest Baird, leader of the United Ulster Unionist Party, who sought to cement his new party's electoral position.

On 5 November 2011, he was elected as the new leader of the SDLP.

* Gerard Murray, ' John Hume and the SDLP: impact and survival in Northern Ireland ,' Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1998.

In the meantime, Northern Ireland's Nationalist Party ( a very different entity from the pre-partition Nationalist Party ) began to be seen as an irrelevance, and was replaced as the majority voice of moderate nationalism by John Hume's Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) in the 1970s.

There had been much speculation that with the gradual retirement of John Hume from politics, the SDLP vote might collapse.

He succeeded John Hume, also of the SDLP, who had represented the seat since 1983.

In 1994, talks between the leaders of the two main Irish nationalist parties in Northern Ireland, John Hume of the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ), and Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin ( SF ), continued.

Guest speakers included SDLP Party Leader Alasdair McDonnell, Deputy Leader Dolores Kelly, Ulster Unionist Party ( UUP ) Deputy Leader John McCallister and former MP Joe Hendron.

The Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ), the newly-formed party of which John Hume and Ivan Cooper were leading members, withdrew from Stormont in protest, but among the residents there was a perception that ' moderate ' policies had failed.

Devlin then went on, with Fitt, John Hume, Austin Currie and others to found the SDLP in 1970.

Devlin, like Fitt, was a Labour man first and foremost and deeply distrusted John Hume and others in the SDLP who he regarded as nationalists and not social democrats.

However several previously independent councillors also joined the party and the party was boosted in the late 1970s by the defection of a prominent Protestant Larne SDLP councillor, John Turnley, later the party chairman, who was killed in 1980 in Carnlough, County Antrim by an attack claimed by the Ulster Defence Association.

In his autobiography Straight Left he accused Hume of seeking to make the SDLP just another nationalist party and while not regretting his expulsion ( following a public attack on the party's direction ) from the SDLP in 1977 called the dispute that led him to leave " a most unworthy squabble " and concedes " I was not the innocent party ".

Hume founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ), bringing together independent nationalist politicians elected in 1969 and some representatives of existing parties.

On 21 August 1970 Cooper co-founded the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) with Hume, Paddy Devlin and Gerry Fitt.

Nicholson, who was defending the nationalist-majority Newry and Armagh constituency in the by-election, was the only resigning MP not to re-win his seat, losing it to Seamus Mallon of the moderate nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) in the by-election.

they include the poet Seamus Heaney and dramatist Brian Friel as well as the former SDLP MP and deputy first minister Seamus Mallon.

She succeeded fellow SDLP MP Eddie McGrady, who had held the seat since 1987 when he defeated Enoch Powell of the Ulster Unionist Party who had represented the seat since October 1974.

The current Executive Committee was elected at the SDLP Youth Annual Conference on 13th and 14th April held in St Paul's Parish Centre, Falls Road, West Belfast, on the 20th anniversary of the election of Joe Hendron as MP for the area.

Former party Leader Mark Durkan MP commended SDLP Youth in his speech to SDLP Party Conference 2009 for running a lively campaign against cluster munitions-including " a striking YouTube video ".

Paddy Devlin ( 8 March 1925-15 August 1999 ) was a Northern Irish social democrat and Labour activist, a former Stormont MP, a founder of the Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) and a member of the 1974 Power Sharing Executive.

New elections were required to be held in Northern Ireland, in which the unionists lost the seat of ( Newry and Armagh ) to Seamus Mallon of the SDLP.

There were no changes in the West or South areas ( there was much speculation that demographic change would deliver a Sinn Féin a seat in South, however these claims turned out to be unfounded, with the SDLP being the sixth placed runner up, being narrowly beaten by the UUP for the fifth seat.

Like Paddy Devlin before him, he claimed the SDLP had ceased to be a socialist force.

The 1998 Belfast Agreement, which is endorsed by the Northern Ireland nationalist parties ( the SDLP and Sinn Féin ) and the main parties in the Republic of Ireland, recognises the validity of alternative loyalties, containing a commitment to " recognise the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citisenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland.

In the case of the British Labour Party this campaign had long run up against the party's former policy that Northern Ireland should be given over to the Republic of Ireland and Labour's relations with the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ).

It was passed with Social Democratic and Labour Party ( SDLP ) support, on the understanding that no immediate action would be taken.

Subsequently Alliance took the controversial decision to withdraw from several constituencies which looked likely to be fierce contests between the Ulster Unionists and / or the SDLP against the Democratic Unionists and / or Sinn Féin, instead urging voters to support the pro Agreement candidate best placed for peace ( although Sinn Féin were pro-Agreement, its main rival for votes, the SDLP, was ideologically closer to the Alliance Party ).