N.Irish Protestant leader David Ervine dies

BELFAST, Jan 8 (Reuters) David Ervine, one of Northern Ireland's leading Protestant politicians, died in hospital in Belfast today after suffering a heart attack at the weekend, a spokeswoman for his political party said.

Ervine, 53, the leader of the British-ruled province's Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) and a former paramilitary, was influential in talks that led to 1998's landmark Good Friday peace agreement to end 30 years of sectarian conflict.

A Belfast city councillor and a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Ervine also played a key role in brokering a ceasefire by Protestant paramilitaries in 1994.

While his party retained close links to the pro-British Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) paramilitary group, Ervine argued in favour of compromise with his nationalist opponents while remaining opposed to a united Ireland.

His stance drew death threats from both Irish Republican Army foes, who waged a three-decade campaign against British rule in the province, and guerrillas within his own community.

Raised in a staunchly working-class Protestant area of Belfast, Ervine joined the UVF as a teenager in the early 1970s and was arrested in 1974 while transporting a bomb.

While serving a jail term in Northern Ireland's notorious Maze Prison he set about educating himself, gaining a degree from the Open University and joining the PUP on his release.

Ervine later said he was driven to paramilitarism after witnessing the carnage of ''Bloody Friday'' in 1972 when the IRA killed nine people and caused devastation across Belfast by detonating 21 bombs within hours of each other.

More than 3,600 people were killed in the province's conflict between majority Protestants unionists committed to links with Britain and minority Catholic nationalists who favour a united Ireland.

REUTERS BDP BD2231