Duffy, Patrick Aloyisius (1933–95), politician and solicitor, was born 19 July 1933 in the parish of Ardboe, Co. Tyrone, one of four sons and a daughter of Patrick Duffy, farmer and local councillor on Cookstown rural council, and Margaret Duffy (née Devlin). He was educated at Mullinahoe primary school and St Patrick's Boys' Academy, Dungannon, before attending QUB, where he took a law degree. His professional career began in the office of Joseph H. Donnelly, a solicitor in Stewartstown, Co. Tyrone, and in 1960 Duffy opened his first practice in Cookstown, later establishing offices in Dungannon, Magherafelt, Omagh, Coalisland, and finally Belfast. As a member of the Northern Ireland Law Society he became junior president in 1991, succeeding as president in 1992 and completing his term in office as senior vice-president in 1993.
As one of the first generation of young catholics in Northern Ireland to benefit from the 1947 education act, which allowed many to gain access to grammar schools and third-level education, Duffy like many others formed political opinions in marked contrast to those that had largely shaped the attitude of northern nationalists since partition: that the time had come for the catholic minority to organise and help themselves, rather than await the end of partition as a solution to all their problems. At a practical level this involved voluntary work in organisations promoting the welfare of local communities. Duffy was a founder member of the Lough Neagh Fishermen's Cooperative in 1965, and was closely involved in its campaign to secure sole ownership of the eel fishery from the government, which was finally achieved in 1971. In addition he was a member of various housing associations aiming to provide well-maintained and affordable properties for those in need in the Mid-Ulster area, and along with others he was a leading figure in promoting the credit union movement. He was also involved in initiatives to promote industry in his locality by way of self-help development associations, most notably the Dungannon and District Cooperative; for a time he was executive chairman of Tyrone Crystal when it came under the control of the cooperative.
His first involvement in politics came in the early 1960s with the National Popular Front, an umbrella organisation established in 1964 to encourage the nationalist party to join in a process to create a more active and dynamic constituency party. When this failed he continued, along with similar-minded activists, to work to allow agreed anti-unionist candidates to stand in the Westminster constituencies of Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh and South Tyrone, which, despite having nationalist majorities, had both recently returned unionist MPs. In the general election of June 1970 this process culminated in the election of Bernadette Devlin and Frank McManus, the Unity candidates in these two constituencies.
With the demise of the nationalist party as the main representative of the minority community in Northern Ireland, Duffy became from the outset a member of the SDLP, established in August 1970 to unite a broad range of anti-unionist opinion. He served on the party's executive as treasurer (1971–5) and as assistant treasurer (1975–7). His first entry into electoral politics came in 1973 when he was elected to Cookstown district council, and he maintained a presence on this body until his decision in 1993 not to seek reelection. In addition Duffy represented Mid-Ulster in the Northern Ireland assembly of 1973–4 and the constitutional convention of 1975, but was unsuccessful at the Westminster general election of May 1979, when he failed to win the constituency of Mid-Ulster.
As an active member of the SDLP he supported the Sunningdale agreement (1973), but after its demise began to believe that any attempt to revive a power-sharing administration within Northern Ireland was doomed to failure. Along with others in the party he urged the introduction of some form of joint administration by the British and Irish governments. This view was not shared by some of the leadership, such as the leader, Gerry Fitt (qv) (1926–2005), and Paddy Devlin (qv), who both advocated a return to the arrangements of 1974 but with a reduced role for the authorities in Dublin. By the time of the next major political initiative in the early 1980s, both Fitt and Devlin had left the party after internal disputes, while Duffy continued to oppose any project for devolved government in Northern Ireland without significant input from the Irish side. Accordingly, he argued (in vain) that the SDLP should not take part in elections to a new Northern Ireland assembly being proposed by the British government, and he refused to stand in his constituency of Mid-Ulster at the subsequent election in October 1982. As a result he ceased to be the party's spokesman on agricultural affairs.
Although he remained a member of the party as well as one of its local government representatives, Duffy never again held a senior position. He once again concentrated on expanding his legal practice, in addition to continuing efforts to encourage economic development in his native Ardboe area. These activities were to lead to his accepting a position on the board of the International Fund for Ireland (IFI), the body established in the wake of the Anglo–Irish agreement of 1985 to regenerate deprived areas in Northern Ireland and the border areas of the Republic. He served on the IFI from 1 October 1989 until his death. Having battled against cancer for some time he died on 19 August 1995 and was survived by his wife Mary (née Hackett) and sons Brian, Garret, and Damien.