John Hume

John Hume (born 18 January, 1937) is an Northern Irish politician, and co-recipient of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, with David Trimble of the UUP. He was the second leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, a position he held from 1979 until 2001. He has served as an MEP and a Member of Parliament for the Foyle (constituency), as well as a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. He is regarded as one of the most important figures in the modern political history of Northern Ireland and one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process there. He is the only person in history to have won the three biggest peace awards in the world: the Nobel Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize, and the Martin Luther King Award.

Beginnings

Hume was born in the predominantly Irish nationalist city of Derry (also known as Londonderry), and educated at St. Columb's College and at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, the leading Catholic seminary in Ireland and a recognised college of the National University of Ireland, where he intended to study for the priesthood. He did not complete these studies and returned home to his native city and became a teacher. He was a founding member of the Credit Union movement in the city. Hume became a leading figure in the civil rights movement in the late 1960s, having been prominent in the unsuccessful fight to have Northern Ireland's second university established in Derry in the mid-sixties.

Political career

Hume became an independent member of the Northern Ireland Parliament in 1969 at the height of the civil rights campaign. He served as Minister of Commerce in the short-lived power-sharing government in 1974. He was elected to the Westminster Parliament in 1983.

In October 1971 he joined four Westminster MPs in a 48-hour hunger strike to protest at the internment without trial of hundreds of suspected Irish republicans. A founding member of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), he succeeded Gerry Fitt as its leader in 1979. He has also served as one of Northern Ireland's three Member of the European Parliaments and has served on the faculty of Boston College, from which he received an honorary degree in 1995.

Hume was directly involved in 'secret talks' with the British government and Sinn Féin, in effort to bring Sinn Féin to the discussion table openly. The talks are speculated to have led directly to the Anglo-Irish Agreement in 1985. Unfortunately, due mostly to the way in which this was implemented (with no public consent), the vast majority of unionists rejected it and staged a massive and peaceful public rally in Belfast City Centre to demonstrate their distaste. Many republicans and nationalists rejected it also, as they had seen it as not going far enough. Hume hadn't stopped there though, and continued dialogue with both the government and Sinn Féin. The "Hume-Adams process" eventually delivered the 1994 IRA ceasefire which ultimately provided the relatively peaceful backdrop against which the Good Friday agreement was brokered.

Reputation

Hume is credited with being the thinker behind many of the recent political developments in Northern Ireland, from Sunningdale power-sharing to the Anglo-Irish Agreement and the Belfast Agreement. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 alongside the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, David Trimble.

On his retirement from the leadership of the SDLP in 2001 he was praised across the political divide, even by his longtime opponent, fellow MP and MEP, the Rev. Ian Paisley, although, ironically, Conor Cruise O'Brien, the iconoclastic Irish writer and former politician was a scathing critic of Hume, for what O'Brien perceived as Hume's anti-Protestant bias, but this is definitely a minority viewpoint.

Retirement

On 4 February, 2004, Hume announced his complete retirement from politics, and shepherded Mark Durkan as the SDLP leader and successor. He did not contest the 2004 European election (which was won by Bairbre de Brun of Sinn Féin) or the 2005 general election, which Mark Durkan successfully held for the SDLP.

Hume and his wife, Pat, continue to be active in promoting European integration, issues around global poverty and the Credit Union movement. In furtherance of his goals, he continues to speak publicly, including a visit to Seton Hall University in New Jersey in 2005, or the first Summer University of Democracy of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, 10-14 July 2006).

Awards

Nobel Prize for Peace (co-recipient), 1998.
Honorary LL.D., Boston College, 1995.
Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society 2004
Freedom of the City of Cork, 2004.Details available here.

References