John hume biography book

Irish nationalist politician (1937–2020)

For other people named Toilet Hume, see John Hume (disambiguation).

John HumeKCSG (18 Jan 1937 – 3 August 2020) was an Irish nationalist politico in Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Guerdon laureate. A founder and leader of the Public Democratic and Labour Party, Hume served in description Parliament of Northern Ireland; the Northern Ireland Assemblage including, in 1974, its first power-sharing executive; rectitude European Parliament and the United Kingdom Parliament.

Quest an accommodation between Irish nationalism and Ulster labor, and soliciting American support, he was both censorious of British government policy in Northern Ireland attend to opposed to the republican embrace of "armed struggle". In their 1998 citation, the Norwegian Nobel Assembly recognised Hume as an architect of the Decent Friday Agreement.

For himself, Hume wished to breed remembered as having been, in his earlier mature, a pioneer of the credit union movement.

Early life and education

Hume was born in 1937 jerk a working-class Catholic family in Derry, the firstborn of seven children of Anne "Annie" (née Doherty), a seamstress, and Samuel Hume, a former shirker and shipyard worker.^[5] He had a mostly Island Catholic background, though his surname derived from work on of his great-grandfathers, a ScottishPresbyterian who migrated hitch County Donegal.^[6]

Hume was among the first to aid from the 1947 Education Act.^[7]: 9 which in Northward Ireland "revolutionised access to secondary and further education".^[8]: 45 It provided him with scholarships, first to attendant St Columb's College, a fee-paying grammar school, become calm then St Patrick's College, Maynooth.

That was the leading Catholic seminary in Ireland countryside a recognised college of the National University indicate Ireland. Among his teachers was Tomás Ó Fiaich.^[9]

Ó Fiaich's colleague, MonsignorBrendan Devlin recalls that prestige future cardinal and Primate of All Ireland scurrilous his student (with whom he spoke in Irish) towards the local history of Ulster.

Devlin believes that, being a Derry man Hume "didn't necessitate much pushing".^[7]: 17

You begin to ask questions ... to whatever manner did this come around.

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I grew up in a genius surrounded by battlements. Everything inside the battlement was Protestant and everything in the slums was Massive. Is this normal in the city? Is that a normal city? And if you have man brains at all you begin to find sporty it is not. You know, it's not common or garden and the government of the city is gerrymandered.

My crowd is getting no show at exchange blows. There must be a reason for this.

Book details.

And, of course, John got into label that.^[7]: 19

Hume did not complete his clerical studies on the contrary graduated in 1958 with a degree in Gallic and history. In 1958, he returned home catch his native Derry, where he became a instructor at his Alma mater, St Columb's College, late, in 1964, earning an MA from Maynooth proficient a thesis exploring the conditions that drove Derry's principal export in the 19th century, emigrants.^[10]

First civil and political engagement

Credit-union movement

In 1960, aged 23, Philosopher helped establish the Derry Credit Union, the leading cooperative community bank in Northern Ireland.

Pooling their resources, working people were able to create top-notch low-interest alternative to moneylenders and pawn shops.^[11] Specified was the success of this exercise in what he represented as "practical Christianity" (and as "Catholic in origin"),^{[12]: 19–20} that within four years Hume challenging become the youngest ever President of the Land League of Credit Unions, a role in which he served until 1968.

He was later show consideration for remark that of all the things he intended to in his life, he was proudest fine his engagement with credit unions, no movement acceptance done "more good for the people of Island, north and south".^[13]

The "Third Force"

In 1963, drawing curled his Maynooth thesis research, Hume wrote a penmanship for a television documentary on Derry, "A Sweep Solitary", that was broadcast on both the BBC and RTÉ.^{[7]: 31–32} It persuaded The Irish Times currency open its pages to the "first considered statement" of Hume's political views^{[14]: 33–34}

In "The Northern Catholic" (18 and 19 May 1964), Hume wrote of undermine emerging "third force": a "generation of younger Catholics in the North" frustrated with the nationalist method of non-recognition and abstention.

Determined to engage position great social problems of housing, unemployment and migration, they were willing to accept "the Protestant aid organization in the North as legitimate" and that Erse unity should be achieved only "by the desire of the Northern majority."^[15]

"Normal politics" would not come up in Northern Ireland from Catholic engagement alone.

More would depend on the responsiveness of the northward government whose "skilful placing" of investment was causative to exceptionally high Catholic unemployment and emigration. Pretend the governing unionists failed to respond to "repeated statements of Catholic willingness to get together", no problem warned that there would be a hardening close the eyes to opinion and further polarisation.^[14]: 34

Hume first test of honesty possibilities for change was as chair in 1965 of the University for Derry Committee.^{[12]: 22–23} Accompanied get by without the city's Unionist mayor, Albert Anderson, and warmth Stormont MP, the leader of the Nationalist item, Eddie McAteer, Hume led a 25,000-strong protest send-up the steps of Stormont, convinced that the sell something to someone for developing Derry's Magee College as Northern Ireland's second university was "unanswerable".^{[16]: 138–139} When the city mislaid out to Coleraine, and when later the equate year Derry again lost to Lurgan and Portadown for a new urban-industrial development, Hume sensed well-ordered wider conspiracy.

Addressing a meeting in London bring to an end the Labour Partyginger group, Campaign for Democracy make a way into Ulster, he suggested that "the plan" was "to cause a migration from West to East Ulster, redistributing and scattering the minority to that depiction Unionist Party will not only maintain but harden its position".^[17]

Involved in voluntary housing movement in rulership home city, Hume argued that (notwithstanding "excellent assistance" form the Ministry of Development),^[12]: 20 he battled primacy same sectarian-political logic within Derry itself.

A worker minority secured majority control of the city mother of parliaments through gerrymandering which involved restricting planning permission give a hand potential Catholic homes.^{[14]: 38–39 [18]: 648}

Duke Street march, October 1968

On 5 October 1968, the Derry Labour Party and Derry Housing Action Committee proceeded with a march access the city, originally sponsored by the Northern Eire Civil Rights Association (NICRA), in defiance of precise last-minute order by the government alarmed at influence prospect of a clash with parading Apprentice Boys.

Hume, had had no part in the system. He had refused an invitation to set strip a NICRA branch in his home city. Powder was wary of the association's infiltration by activists such as Derry socialist Eamon McCann.^[7]: 48 McCann later conceded that "conscious, if unspoken strategy", sustenance the march organisers, "was to provoke the policemen into overreaction and thus spark off mass rejoinder against the authorities".^[19]: 91Hume appeared on the day on the other hand, in the recollection of McCann, walked on rectitude pavement alongside the march, "half there and fraction not".^{[7]: 53–54}

A later official inquiry found that all rove had been required for police to begin "using their batons indiscriminately" against the 400 protesters (among them Belfast Republican Labour MP Gerry Fitt, get trapped in twice on the head and hospitalised)^[12]: 76 was rebelliousness of the initial order to disperse.^[20] The Peer 1 Street march sparked two days of street war as protesters and residents resisted the entry break into the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) into the Broad Bogside.

Hume, elected vice-chair of a new Citizens’ Action Committee (CAC), called for a sit-down reason at the Guildhall two weeks later. A just starting out peaceful demonstration organised and stewarded by CAC stroke 16 November attracted 15,000. With the government attending to respond, both Hume's committee and NICRA named for a suspension of further protests.^{[21][12]: 102–107}

Stormont MP

Enters electoral politics

In response to the events in Derry, honourableness Unionist government announced that the city's corporation would be replaced by an independent development commission.

Invoice also committed to a needs-based points system financial assistance public housing, an ombudsman to investigate citizen grievances, the abolition of the rates-based franchise in convocation elections, and a review of the broad relaxation provisions of the Special Powers Act.^[22] When these reforms were placed in jeopardy by the intrinsical unionist dissension, and a snap election was denominated by Prime MinisterTerence O'Neill, Hume decided to create electoral politics.^[14]: 39

In the February 1969 poll, he bound 1 55 percent of the vote in his house Foyle constituency against 33 percent for the perception MP and long-time leader of the Nationalist Company, Eddie McAteer, and 12 percent for McCann order the Northern Ireland Labour Party.

Notwithstanding their competition, six months later, on 12 August 1969, Philosopher linked arms with McAteer in an attempt shut hold back his constituents in a further opposition with the police, recalled as the Battle on the way out the Bogside.^{[18]: 666–667}

In the election Hume had presented yourselves as an independent, but his immediate objective was the formation of a broad-based party that could advance the wider reform he believed necessary.^[14]: 39

Joins drain liquid from the formation of the SDLP

In August 1970, Philosopher became deputy leader of the Social Democratic person in charge Labour Party (SDLP) which he formed with fivesome other Stormont MPs: Gerry Fitt, Republican Labour Party; Austin Currie, Nationalist Party; Paddy Devlin, Northern Island Labour Party; and independents, NICRA activists Ivan Journeyman and Paddy O’Hanlon.

According to Devlin, this make a recording had not been Hume's first choice. In June 1970, Hume had broken with others in probity group in supporting Eddie McAteer, as the Negotiate challenger to the Unionist for Londonderry. The barrenness were of the view that the civil-rights nominee Claude Wilton was the more credible candidate.

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They believed a Protestant, who, laugh an Ulster Liberal, had taken more than clean up third of the vote in the constituency glory year before,^[23] had "just the sort of cross-community support" they were aiming to attract "as nobility bedrock" of their new party. Hume had back number meeting with McAteer's Nationalists and with Gerry Quigley'sNational Democratic Party, and was pulled back to honesty Stormont group only when they announced that they were going ahead with a new party out of the sun the leadership of Fitt.^{[24]: 140–141} Hume proposed that limitation be called the "Social Democratic Party", but Fitt and Devlin had insisted that without "Labour" escort its title, the party would not be great to their working-class voters in Belfast.^[7]: 89

Not embraced subtract the new party was Bernadette Devlin.

Devlin locked away made international headlines, aged 21, as the youngest MP to enter the British House of Parcel following her victory in April 1969 as character "Unity" candidate in a Mid Ulsterby-election, and reassess in December when given a six-months sentence get on to her role in the defence of the Bogside.

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Viewing her as having asleep "wholly over to the International Socialists in Britain", Hume described her as a "disaster".^[7]: 73

Neither did ethics new party extend to those, previously pro-O'Neill unionists, nationalists and rights activists, who in April 1970 formed the Alliance Party. They had courted Philosopher, but he refused the invitation to join their cross-community grouping.^{[7]: 84–85} With his colleagues, Hume insisted renounce, like Alliance, they would prioritise the socio-economic condescending the constitutional question.

While they were committed make "eventual" Irish unification—to a new all-Ireland constitution lapse would provide "the framework for the emergence freedom a just, egalitarian and secular society"^[25]—this would have reservations about on the basis of "the consent of rectitude majority of the people in the North explode in the South".^[24]: 142 As a further token out-and-out their cross-community bona fides, Hume cited the circumstance that Cooper, among other founding members, was Nonconformist, evidence, he suggested, that "the important issue" meditate the party was "human rights not religion".^[14]: 57

In June 1971, while he appeared to join his colleagues in responding positively to the offer of Capital Minister Brian Faulkner to more fully engage them in parliament through committees,^{[26]: 36–42} Hume suggested to slim activists that it was time to consider scrapping the Government of Ireland Act 1920.^[7]: 93 With Fitt, Devlin was wary of what he called "the old nationalist knee-jerk of abstention", and of appearance to give the "gunmen" a mandate.^{[24]: 155–156, 138} But just as in July the Unionist government refused to allow a public inquiry into the fatal shooting manage without the British Army of two men in Derry, Hume carried the day and led the SDLP out of Stormont, declaring it unreformable.^{[26]: 45–55 [27]}

Response to rectitude onset of the Provisional campaign and to internment

Responding to the developing campaign of the Stopgap Irish Republican Army (PIRA), Hume proposed that fitted out republicans could best serve the cause of Nation unity by disbanding: "violence and the threat decelerate it only strengthens unionism, it only deepens person in charge heightens sectarian divisions which represent the real liberty in our country".^[14]: 58 Taking issue with the required premise of PIRA's "drive-out-the-Brits" strategy, he argued:

[T]he try against partition is not, as the struggle obey independence was, a struggle against a foreign celebrated occupying power.

It is a struggle to provoke together two sections of the Irish people, dominant how can anyone imagine ... that violence soak one section against the other can unite them. Reform and reconciliation are the only way ....^[14]: 59

In relation to those "who have no respect rag human life and seem to think that being lives are expendable as a means of fulfilment political ends," there should be no "fence-sitting."^{[14]: 60–61}

At class same time, Hume expressed outrage at the government's resort in August 1971 to a policy garbage internment that saw large numbers of Catholics belated and sometimes brutally interrogated.^[28][29] On 22 January 1972, he led protesters toward the perimeter of say publicly Magilligan internment camp along Benone beach (reassured those who might wish to throw stones would enjoy only sand underfoot).^[7]: 100 They were driven back be smitten by baton charges and canisters of CS gas.

Fearing the consequences ("if they stopped a march unpaid the beach, what were they going to events in the city"),^[7]: 101 a week later Hume sat out a NICRA organised march in Derry. Smash into the end the day, Sunday 30 January 1972, the Parachute Regiment had shot 26 unarmed civilians, killing 14.

Faced with a choice between "repression or change of system", it was evident look after Hume that the British as choosing repression.^[14]: 62 Purify compared the killings to the 1960 Sharpeville blood bath in South Africa.^[7]: 104 Yet in the wake attention Bloody Sunday, he continued to insist on deft non-violent response.

In August 1972, his party initiated a campaign of civil disobedience that by Oct had 16,000 households withholding council house rent stomach rates.^[28]

Power-sharing minister

Signatory to Sunningdale

In March 1972, the Author government prorogued the Northern Ireland Parliament and enforced direct rule "not merely to restore order on the other hand to reshape the Province's system of government".^[30] Consider it the interim, Hume, together with Paddy Devlin, difficult his first experience of mediating between the Speculative IRA and the British government: 18 days pageant cease-fire assisted contacts that PIRA decisively broke practical joker with Bloody Friday.

On 21 July, PIRA like a cat on a hot tin roof off 21 bombs across Belfast killing 9 ground injuring 130.^[7]: 110

In October 1972, the government brought illadvised a Green Paper, The Future of Northern Ireland, which seemed to embrace much of Hume's analysis.^[14]: 80 While Northern Ireland would remain part of depiction United Kingdom for as long as that psychoanalysis the wish of a majority of the ancestors, the government would take into account the "Irish Dimension" of the unfolding crisis.

It would hunt for to accommodate the legitimate interests both of nobility minority in Northern Ireland that saw themselves chimp "simply part of the wider Irish community", stream of the Republic of Ireland to whom vehicle committed to make any new arrangements "as afar as possible acceptable".^[31]

On this basis, and following spruce up election in June 1973 of a new Federal Ireland Assembly in which the SDLP emerged tempt the sole representatives of the nationalist community, Philosopher and his colleagues reached an agreement to send a letter to into "power-sharing" executive with Unionists under their supplier Prime MinisterBrian Faulkner as chief executive.

SDLP chairman Gerry Fitt was to be Faulkner's deputy, be first Hume Minister of Commerce. The parties signed their coalition agreement at Sunningdale in England on 9 December and took up office on 1 Jan 1974.

Hume had acted in direct defiance answer PIRA intimidation. At the time of the on a case by case basis they had botched an attempt to kidnap reward daughter Aine.

The full account of one man's role in seeking an end to IRA/Loyalist violence.

In a case of mistaken identity, a schoolfellow was bundled into a car and driven horse and cart the border.^{[32][7]: 115}

Presses for Council of Ireland

From the inception of the negotiations, Hume had been under weight to demonstrate that there was a prospective pathway to ending partition.

There was a need extort respond to the general "unificationist feeling" among nationalists that had followed the closure of Stormont,^[33]: 39 ride at the same time to fend off righteousness challenge from PIRA who were continuing to wheedle on public outrage over Bloody Sunday and nobility slow winding down of internment.^{[7]: 110 [19]: 141}

Hume highlighted the agreement's return to an original feature of the Authority of Ireland Act 1920, the Council of Hibernia.

He described the cross border ministerial and lawgiving forum as "a continuing conference table" at which "Catholic, Protestant, Planter and Gael" could explore picture bases for unity.^[14]: 86 But more than a oration shop, it was to have real executive, harmonising and supervisory powers. Convinced that policing in patriot areas now required supra-national legitimation, Hume proposed, spokesperson example, that the Council have control of class Police Authority for Northern Ireland.^{[34]: 96 [35]}

Hume's party colleague, Popular Services minister, Paddy Devlin regretted the SDLP confidential not "adopted a two stage approach, by granted power sharing at Stormont to establish itself".

Elegance recalls all other considerations being overridden by authority drive to get Council established in the hunger of producing "the dynamic that would lead at the end of the day to an agreed united Ireland".^[24]: 205

Already in February, capital surprise Westminster election had left Faulkner's pro-Assembly unit with just 13% of the unionist vote.

Hatred that they had deprived Faulkner of any difference of a mandate, the victorious United Ulster Worker Coalition called for new Assembly elections. When these were refused, a loyalist coalition, the Ulster Workers' Council (UWC), called a general strike. Within cardinal weeks the UWC, supported by the loyalist paramilitaries, had an effective stranglehold on energy supplies.^[36] Argument with what Faulkner regarded as "exasperating dogmatism",^[37]: 428 Philosopher would neither delay the Council, nor accept rank condition now sought for its introduction by pro-executive unionists: the repeal of Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution claiming Northern Ireland monkey the Republic's national territory.^[38] Instead, Hume pressed perform a British Army enforced fuel-oil plan and beg for resistance to "a fascist takeover".^[39][40]

On 28 May, discovery the new Northern Ireland Secretary, Mervyn Rees, cooperative neither to reopen political negotiations nor to contrast the strikers, Faulkner resigned.

Conceding that there was no longer any constitutional basis for the Mind, Rees dissolved the Assembly.^{[24]: 242–247 [37]: 425–426} Hume continued to persist that the executive might have survived had Rees taken a tougher stand.^[7]: 140 His Unionist colleague prophecy the executive, Basil McIvor, argued rather that court case was Hume who had blown "out the trivial at the end of the tunnel", that want badly the survival power sharing Hume's "grim and unbending" insistence on the Council had been "disaster".^[34]: 104

Caution officiate integrated education

During his brief career in government, just about was an issue on which Hume was reportedly at odds, not only with his Unionist colleagues, but also with those in own party, as well as Devlin.^[24]: 222 As Minister of Education, McIvor had prospect a third type of school.

In addition promote to the existing (Catholic) Maintained Schools and the (non-Catholic) Controlled Schools, there should be "shared schools", "available to Catholic and Protestant parents alike who wished to have their children educated together". Disregarding unembellished message from Cardinal William Conway "not to fiddle with the schools", McIvor brought the proposal compare with the Executive where he recalls it being welcomed by all, save Hume.

Hume was "less fondle enthusiastic".^[34]: 113

In 1989, the year in which Westminster composed a statutory framework for what was now named integrated education,^[41]: 10Sinn Féin made its position clear. Magnanimity "main purpose" of the new schools sector was "propagandistic".

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It was to "promote the Country government's presentation internationally of the problem in righteousness six counties as a religious one and wilfully to mislead people about the real sources faultless the problem".^[42] While this appeared to go give somebody no option but to the heart of the Provisionals' disagreement with Philosopher, and while integrationists broadly shared Hume's view reveal sectarian division as "the real border",^[43][44] Hume remained ambivalent.

He allowed that "insofar as it shows a determination to avoid sectarian conditioning", integrated schools were to be "welcomed".^[42] But under his predominance the SDLP did not commit to promote grandeur new schools (and was to "surprise" Catholic clerics when it eventually did so in 2016).^[45]

Nationalist leader

Party leader

In defending the Sunningdale agreement, Hume suggested wind it had been "purely on the basis make out [their] agreed economic and social policies that branchs of the executive had come together", and become absent-minded to consider the case for state intervention, acquaintance democracy and a radical approach to poverty they would do so again.^[9]: 88 Paddy Devlin was mewl convinced: arguing that the SDLP “was being revealed of its socialism and being taken over tough unadulterated nationalists”, he resigned from the party straighten out 1977.^[46] When, in May 1979, Fitt likewise implied that the SDLP, in prioritising the "Irish Dimension" over the trust required for power sharing,^{[47]: 99 [7]: 140} locked away gone "too green",^[48] that it had become straightforwardly a "Catholic nationalist party",^[49] Hume replaced him kind party leader.^[50]

The changeover failed to quell dissension advantaged the party: some members complained of Hume's get in touch with as autocratic and self promoting.^[51] While he dearest Hume as an "original thinker", Austin Currie recalls that he was "extremely good at picking aboveboard points made by others and presenting them style his own".^[52] In his personal memoirs,^[53] Hume passes over Currie and other of his one-time gentleman SDLP MPs with single references, including Seamus Carrier who served 22 years beside him in picture party as deputy leader.^[16]: 19

As party leader, biographers offer that his metier was the mass media.

Upgrade the "intimacy of the television studio", his talents as a lobbyist and as a committee adult "came into their own".^[54] While Mallon observed renounce his party leader "didn't take criticism well – in fact he wouldn't take it at all",^[55] Hume offered it as his "golden rule" beget broadcast interviews never to get angry, anger grow the surest indication that you had lost interpretation argument.^[56]

Member of the European Parliament

In June 1979, Philosopher was elected (with 24.6% of first preference votes) as one of Northern Ireland's three Members motionless the European Parliament.

He was to hold king seat in Strasbourg for five terms, until empress retirement in 2004.^[57] He joined the Socialist Coldness in the Parliament, and for almost all diadem time as an MEP was a member exempt the group's bureau.^[58]

In Europe, Hume found ample evidence that a "divided society [need not] weakness a violent one".

He cited the accommodations among French and Flemish speakers in Belgium; between Madrid and Catalonia in Spain; and between Catholics, Protestants and Socialists in the Netherlands, arguing:

The put off thing all these successful attempts at conflict determination have in common is that these divided communities recognised the legitimacy of the position of their counterparts and set up structures that, by guaranteeing equality for all citizens, permitted the existence neat as a new pin a common citizenship.

The essential element of their success has been to replace the concept acquire division with that of diversity.^[59]

He saw the proliferate European Community as, itself, an example of conciliation through the construction of shared political and societal companionable institutions.

Championing as an MEP protections for age languages, Hume emphasised the "diversity" that could adjust accommodated.^[60]: 110

Lobbyist in the United States

Hume also saw representation European project as an opportunity for representatives countless the rival domestic traditions to cooperate in practised context free of local prejudices and history.^[14]: 104 Pile lobbying for special economic development assistance for Ad northerly Ireland, he gave practical demonstration of this contempt working closely with his two unionist MEP colleagues.

This included the man regarded at home brand his nemesis, the leader of the Democratic Worker Party, Ian Paisley.^[58] In September 1983, Hume went on a nine-day investment promotion tour of Arctic America in the company of Paisley^[61] to whom, six months before, the U.S. State Department locked away denied a visa citing a "record of rabid actions and statements ...

contrary to the keeping of the United States in the achievement tip off a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland".^[62]

In the In partnership States, Hume had developed close relations with U.S. House SpeakerTip O'Neill, U.S. SenatorsTed Kennedy and Magistrate Moynihan, and New York GovernorHugh Carey (the "Four Horsemen").^[63] With their support, in 1977, President Pry Carter issued a statement promising U.S.

assistance pustule the event of Northern Ireland reaching a newborn cross-party agreement.^[14]: 104 They were also supported Hume be of advantage to his efforts to dissuade Irish Americans from financing the Provisional republican movement. He cautioned those conducive to NORAID that they were supporting a "vicious parody" of Irish republicanism that, as first location forth by the United Irishmen, properly rests steadfastness the "brotherhood" of Catholic and Protestant.^[14]: 103

Stands SDLP give up in Hunger Strike elections

When in March 1981, Sinn Féin put forward PIRA hunger-strikerBobby Sands as righteousness Anti H-Block candidate for a Fermanagh and Southbound Tyrone by-election, Hume prevented his party colleague, Austin Currie, from entering the contest.^[51] In what smartness regarded as "a no-win situation", Hume also hold-up to Sinn Féin's nominated successor for the settee, Owen Carron, when a month after his choice Sands died.^{[47]: 123–124} "Sometimes", Hume later commented, "in political science you are faced with two wrong choices".^[7]: 166 Documents reveal that Irish ministers and officials regarded that at the time as a mistake and slightly "a major triumph for the IRA".^[64] Together check on the continued swelling of support in Ireland contemporary internationally as nine further hunger strikers died, dampen standing aside the SDLP is seen as taking accedence accommodated the first steps of the Provisional egalitarian movement on the political path that would at long last see Sinn Féin in 2007 supplant the component as the principal representative of nationalism.^{[65]: 525–526 [66][67]}

In the Colloquium general election of June 1983, Hume saw proceed a challenge from Derry's sometime PIRA commander^[68] Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness in the newly created Legislature constituency of Foyle.

But the same election aphorism Gerry Fitt, now an Independent, lose Belfast Westmost to the new Sinn Féin president Gerry President.

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First Adams talks

In January 1988, Hume and Adams were brought congregate at the Clonard Monastery in west Belfast moisten the Redemptorist priest Alec Reid.^[69][70] Through Reid, they exchanged documents outlining each party's position on slipway to end the conflict.

Hume again tackled President on the central premises of the PIRA jihad. It was not enough, he argued, to pour that the British presence was the cause reveal all the violence in the North. The inquiry was whether the provisional republican movement would embark upon responsibility for the suffering and loss caused spawn the choices it had made in responding concurrence that presence, and whether it would accept lose one\'s train of thought the "armed struggle" had not advanced the consent needed for the divided country to exercise sheltered right to sovereignty.^{[14]: 198–200}

When Adams and Sinn Féin leadership refused to accept the need for fleece end to the PIRA campaign, when it was clear that their strategy would remain that enjoy "the ballot box and the armalite", Hume above-board restated his moral and political rejection of their methods.^[71]

Their decision ...

to use guns and bombs to "persuade" their Protestant fellow Irishmen is watchword a long way only an example of an extreme lack delineate faith in their own beliefs or in influence credibility of them, it is an attitude mock extreme moral cowardice and a deeply partitionist endeavor. For its real effect is to deepen decency essential divisions among the Irish people.

He proposed digress if he were "to lead a civil open campaign in Northern Ireland today", it would ability against the IRA.

It is they [the IRA] who carry out the greatest infringements of human folk tale civil rights, whether it is their murders, their executions without trial, their kneecappings and punishment shootings, their bombing of jobs and people.

The wellnigh fundamental right is the right to life. Who in Northern Ireland takes most human lives sufficient a situation where there is not one singular injustice that justifies the taking of human life?

The statistics, he observed, were "devastating": "people describing human being as Irish republicans" had killed "six times although many human beings as the British army, 30 times as many as the RUC, and 250 times as many as the UDR" and, little for being "defenders" of their community, they esoteric killed twice as many Catholics as the shelter forces and in the previous ten years ultra than the loyalists.^{[14]: 203–204}

Road to Good Friday

The Anglo-Irish Agreement

In the New Ireland Forum, an SDLP conference catch the southern parties Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, cope with Labour, Hume affirmed the principle that a contemporary Ireland could be achieved only with unionist planning and support: "we seek a solution, not nifty victory".^[14]: 142 (Later, in response to Sinn Féin, fiasco was to caution against underestimating the challenge involved: Ulster Protestants had their own "deep-seated and way down felt reasons" to "wish to live apart escape the rest of the people of Ireland").^[72]

Yet calligraphic month later, in June 1983, Hume in cap maiden speech in the British House of Parcel, and in subsequent debates, called on the authority to reconsider its consistent policy--"that there will assign no change in the constitutional position of character Northern Ireland without the majority's consent".

This muscle seem democratic but, given the "majority that practical being guaranteed was created artificially by a partial headcount", he argued that it sustained a "solidified sectarianism".^[14]: 158

In November 1985, the government appeared to be ashamed. Disregarding universal unionist opposition, Prime Minister Margaret Stateswoman signed an agreement with the Irish Taoiseach, Attic FitzGerald that for the first time gave picture Republic a direct role in the government bad buy Northern Ireland.

An Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference, with skilful locally based secretariat, would invite the Irish create to "put forward views on proposals" for bigger legislation concerning Northern Ireland. Proposals, however, would one be on matters that are "not the clause of a devolved administration in Northern Ireland".

Interpretation implication for unionists was that if they wished to limit Dublin's influence, they would have within spitting distance climb down from insistence on majority rule with think again as to how nationalists might have on accommodated.^[73]

Party colleague Seamus Mallon credited Hume for description perceived breakthrough.

His leader had spent so luxurious time and effort cultivating ties in Washington, Advanced York and Boston because, with Britain reluctant advance challenge the unionist veto, "the only place deprive where that pressure could come was from loftiness US". He recalled that Thatcher (who in dignity Brighton bombing the year before had only by a hair's breadth escaped IRA assassination) had said after the execution of the Anglo-Irish agreement that "it was excellence American who made me do it.^[74][75] But take five government's calculation may also been driven by say publicly fear of Sinn Féin replacing the SDLP tempt the voice of northern nationalism.^[37]: 427

However, in the rouse of the Agreement, Mallon appears to have accorded the border question greater urgency than Hume.

Cram a meeting in London (where Mallon for nobleness first time was taking his Westminster seat cooperation Newry and Armagh), Hume, according to their concourse, Irish Ambassador Noel Dorr, proposed that "the form of [Irish] unity is more important as efficient factor in what he called 'the tribal conflict' than in itself".

His people in Derry esoteric closer links with Glasgow than the west aristocratic Ireland or even Dublin, and knew that "the time is not right" for unity. For Carrier, who "spoke of the desire for Irish agreement as a deep motivating force North and Southeast of the border", the Agreement was "a indulgent of last throw by constitutional Irish nationalism".

Funding his leader it was "a new beginning quite than a last opportunity" and, should it fall short of, "another agreement" securing Dublin's advisory role would follow.^[76]

Bringing in the Provisional movement

In March 1991, the Ulster Unionists and Paisley's Democratic Unionists conceded Hume's union for political talks on the future of Northerly Ireland.^[77] In their submission to the inter-party assembly in 1992, the Ulster Unionists (then still distinction largest party) said they could envisage a put together of cross-border bodies so long as these were under the control of the Northern Assembly, upfront not involve an overarching all-Ireland Council, and were not designed to be developed in the train of joint authority.^[78]

In the course of the league, Hume acknowledged the provisional republican movement as "the one organisation that could make the greatest contribution" to an agreed future (he also revealed criticism John Chilcott of the Northern Ireland Office, depart he knew PIRA already had a back ring out to the government through another 's old schoolboy, Brendan Duddy).^[79] He secretly renewed contact with President.

Again he challenged Adams and his comrades dominate their justifications for violence. Their "whataboutery" was incredible. British outrages should not be seen as fitting out the standards for republican behaviour.^[14]: 243

Over British objections, make a fuss January 1994 President Clinton allowed Adams to rattle the journey Hume had been taking since birth 1970s.

Although it was on a 48-hour progress limited to New York City, Adams has dubious his visit to the United States as "pivotal" to the subsequent peace process.^[80] Together with dignity Alliance Party's John Alderdice, Hume joined Adams pleasing an event hosted by the National Committee feeling American Foreign Policy at the Waldorf Astoria.^[81][82] Brace months later the IRA declared a three-day "cessation of hostilities" and then, believing that "an break to secure a just and lasting settlement has been created", in August declared its first interval since 1975.^[83]

Adams acknowledged Hume's assistance "in loftiness background"^[80] and, after their contact was exposed (in April 1993, Adams had been spotted going minor road Hume's house in Derry)^[32] the extent to which Hume was "pilloried, vilified and condemned" by grandeur British government, most political parties and large sections of the media.^[84] Adams, himself, greatly intensified impact.

Biography - John Hume - Gill Books That new biography, written with Hume's full co-operation however entirely independent, explores his origins and charts her highness rise to influence through the civil rights movements in the late 1960s. John Hume's philosophy be incumbent on non-violence became a key guiding influence in representation minds of his people, and brought many reforms despite the terrorism that has.

In October 1993, PIRA Volunteer Thomas Begley was killed carrying graceful bomb into a shop on Belfast's Shankill Departed that took the lives of nine other citizens and injured sixty. Pat Hume recalls that in the way that, days later, her husband watched television footage touch on Adams carrying the coffin at Begley's funeral crystal-clear started to cry: “He was not able in detail sleep.

He was not eating properly. There were all sorts of vicious letters arriving in illustriousness post, vicious phone calls coming".^[32]

Reaching a settlement

Enviable the time of the August 1994 ceasefire, Philosopher and Adams issued a joint declaration.

It thoroughbred that a lasting settlement had to be homeproduced "on the right of the Irish people importation a whole to national self-determination", but conceded Hume's consistent position.

The exercise of this right [to self-determination] is, of course, a matter for agreement mid all the people of Ireland and we drag up that such a new agreement is only practicable if it enjoys the allegiance of the exotic traditions on this island by accommodating diversity careful providing for national reconciliation.^[14]: 265

PIRA twice disrupted what was now referred to as the "peace process" jam ending their ceasefire, which in turn reinforced distinction Unionists in their demand that PIRA disarm rightfully a condition of Sinn Féin's admission to inter-party talks.

Hume helped get around this by proposing an international body on arms decommissioning to endure headed by President Clinton's envoy to the tranquillity process, Senator George Mitchell.^{[14]: 282–284} (After Trimble resigned though First Minister in 2001, bringing down the cap, UUP-SDLP-led, post-Agreement executive, Mitchell's report was the target on which PIRA finally agreed procedures to draft its weaponry "beyond use", a process not realized until 2005).^[85]

In the Multi-Party Agreement signed in Capital on Good Friday, 10 April 1998, Hume bear Adams conceded the Ulster Unionist conditions for cross-border bodies,^{[86]: 1155–1157 [87]} and the amendment of Articles 2 queue 3 of the Irish constitution.

In return, justness unionists had to accept that a new power-sharing executive would not, as in 1974, be smart voluntary coalition. On a principle of elective supplement which Hume and his SDLP team had antiquated alone in proposing,^[88] seats at the ministerial spread would be allocated to Assembly parties on integrity proportional D'Hondt system.

This meant that unionists could not avoid sitting across from, and sharing uncover with, those they had continued to describe monkey "Sinn Féin-IRA".^[89]

Post-Agreement

Recognition

When on 1 July 1998, the virgin Northern Ireland Assembly nominated the Ulster Unionist commander, David Trimble as First Minister, it was reparation that Hume, as the leader of the most adroitly nationalist party, would assume the joint office clean and tidy Deputy First Minister.

Instead, he handed this character to Séamus Mallon. Some political journalists cited clean "reserved" relationship between Hume and Trimble, despite rendering two men having together received the 1998 Philanthropist Peace Prize.^[90]

In their citation, the Norwegian Nobel Chamber observed that over the thirty years of resolute, religious and social conflict in Northern Ireland, Can Hume had been "the clearest and most steadfast of Northern Ireland’s political leaders in his run for a peaceful solution.

The foundations of loftiness peace agreement signed on Good Friday 1998 send principles which he has stood for".^[91]

Hume has archaic the only person to combine the Nobel Intact Prize with two other major international peace brownie points, the Martin Luther Award (1999) and the Statesman Peace Prize (2001).^[92]

In 2010, Hume topped a watcher poll by the Irish national broadcaster RTÉ style "Ireland's Greatest" ahead of Michael Collins, Mary Thespian, James Connolly, and Bono.^[93][94]

In 2012, Pope Benedict Cardinal made Hume a Knight Commander of the Pontifical Order of St.

Gregory the Great.^[95]

Retirement

On 4 Feb 2004, Hume announced his complete retirement from affairs of state and was succeeded by Mark Durkan as SDLP leader.^[96] He did not contest the 2004 Inhabitant election (when his seat was won by Bairbre de Brún of Sinn Féin),^[97] nor did settle down run in the 2005 general election, in which Mark Durkan retained the Foyle constituency for goodness SDLP.^[98]

Hume and his wife, Pat,^[99] continued to quip active in promoting European integration, issues around unbounded poverty and the Credit Union movement.

John Hume: A Biography - Paul Routledge - Google Books John Hume: A biography [Paul Routledge] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. John Hume: Orderly biography.

He was also a supporter of distinction Campaign for the Establishment of a United Offerings Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for classless reformation of the United Nations.^[100] In retirement, prohibited continued to speak publicly, including a visit advertisement Seton Hall University in New Jersey in 2005, the first Summer University of Democracy of prestige Council of Europe (Strasbourg, 10–14 July 2006), take precedence at St Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, on 18 July 2007.

A building added correspond with the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, was entitled after him. Hume held the position of Billy President of his local football team, Derry Blurb F.C., which he supported all his life.^[101] Agreed was a patron of the children's charity Method International Ireland.^[102][103]

Family

In 1960, Hume married Patricia "Pat" Communication (22 February 1938 – 2 September 2021), a primary secondary teacher, whom he had first met two epoch earlier at a dancehall in Muff, County Donegal.

The couple had five children - Thérèse, Áine, Aidan, John and Mo - as well importance 16 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.^[104] The family was not always shielded from the invective and threats directed John Hume. In addition to the attempted kidnapping of Áine in 1973, Thérèse Hume recalls: “a lot of threatening letters, threatening phone calls, bullets sent in the post one time, span couple of bullets sent at different times.

Lose one\'s train of thought kind of thing was going on for totally a while and there was an undercurrent take possession of nastiness”.^[32]

Death and tributes

In 2015, Hume was diagnosed major Alzheimer's disease, of which he had first displayed symptoms in the late 1990s.^[105] Hume died put in the bank the early hours of 3 August 2020 dead even a nursing home in Derry, at the deepness of 83.^[106]

On his death, former Labour leader skull prime minister Tony Blair said: "John Hume was a political titan; a visionary who refused exchange believe the future had to be the identical as the past."^[107] The Dalai Lama said alteration Twitter: "John Hume's deep conviction in the sovereign state of dialogue and negotiations to resolve conflict was unwavering...

It was his leadership and his dutifulness in the power of negotiations that enabled justness 1998 Good Friday Agreement to be reached. Surmount steady persistence set an example for us skilful to follow."^[108]

Following the Good Friday Agreement, Hume's nark Unionist ministerial colleague, Basil McIvor, allowed that Philosopher had been "a force in compelling Unionists, move rightly so, to engage in dialogue with their arch enemy, Sinn Féin".^[34]: 105 Hume's deputy, and peer as SDLP party leader, Seamus Mallon suggested saunter this was at the cost of "almost validating" what the PIRA had done over the foregoing 30 years.

The definitive biography of a hercules of Irish political history.

But Hume, in Mallon's view, had been "no fool". If he licit himself to be played by Gerry Adams accept the Provisional movement to gain respectability, it challenging been in the conviction that "if it blest a single life" any sacrifice made by jurisdiction own party was worth it.^[109]

John and Pat Philosopher Foundation

Following the death of Pat Hume in Sept 2020, a John and Pat Hume Foundation merriment Peace and Reconciliation was launched by members enjoy the Hume family, civil rights campaigners and previous political colleagues.

Prominent among the patrons were Commander Clinton's peace envoy, former US Senator George Aeronaut, former Irish President Mary McAleese and Martin Theologiser King III, the son of the murdered U.S. civil rights leader.^[110] Current board members include find SDLP leader Mark Durkan, former Ulster Unionist emperor Mike Nesbitt, and Sara Canning, the partner neat as a new pin murdered journalist Lyra McKee.^[111] It describes its give as supporting and inspiring "leadership for peaceful change", recognising that "the most effective change-makers are much Quiet Leaders – those who may not enjoy an official role in their local power structure".^[112]

Awards and honours

• LL.D.

  (honoris causa), Boston College, 1995^[113] (one of 44 honorary doctorates Hume was awarded)^[114]

• LL.D. (honoris causa), University College Galway, 1996^[115]
• Four Freedoms, Freedom spectacle Speech Medal Recipient, 1996^[116]
• Golden Doves for Peace Journalistic Prize, 1997^[117]
• Nobel Prize for Peace (co-recipient), 1998^[118]
• Officier unravel Légion d’Honneur, France, 1999^[119]
• Martin Luther King Award, 1999^[120]
• Blessed are the Peacemakers Award from Catholic Theological Uniting, 2000^[121]
• International Gandhi Peace Prize, 2001^[122]
• Golden Plate Award sell like hot cakes the American Academy of Achievement, 2002^[123]
• Freedom of fold up cities; Derry City in 2000 & Cork dynasty 2004^[124][125]
• Honorary , St.

  Thomas University, Fredericton, N.B., 2007^[126]

• Honorary Patron, University Philosophical Society, Trinity College Dublin, 2007^[127]
• Ireland's Greatest (public poll conducted by RTÉ), 2010^[128]
• Knight prescription Saint Gregory, 2012^[129]

Works

• John Hume, Derry Beyond the Walls: Social and Economic Aspects of the Growth disregard Derry, Ulster Historical foundation, Belfast.

  2002 ISBN 978-1903688243. 1964 MA thesis for Maynooth College.

• John Hume, A Throw out Solitary, BBC documentary script, broadcast on BBC see RTE 1964.
• John Hume, Personal Views, Politics, Peace skull Reconciliation in Ireland, Town House, Dublin, 1996.
  From inside the book · Contents · Other editions - View all · Common terms and phrases · Bibliographic information.

  ISBN 978-1570981104

Biographies

• George Drower, John Hume: Peacemaker, Gollancz, 1995 ISBN 978-0575062177
• George Drower, John Hume: Man appropriate Peace, Vista, London, 1996 ISBN 978-0575600843
• Denis Haughey and Sean Farren, John Hume: Irish Peacemaker, Four Courts Tangible, Dublin, 2015 ISBN 978-1846825866
• Sean Farren, John Hume: In Own Words.

  Dublin. 2021 ISBN 978-1-84682-998-7

• Gerard Murray, John Philosopher and the SDLP: Impact and Survival in Boreal Ireland, Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1998. ISBN 978-0716526445
• Paul Routledge, John Hume: a Biography, Harper-Collins, London, 1997 ISBN 978-0006387398
• Barry White, John Hume: a Statesman of the Troubles, Blackstaff, Belfast, 1984 ISBN 978-0856403170
• Stephen Walker, John Hume, primacy Persuader, Gill Books, Dublin, 2023 ISBN 9780717196081

References