A giant whose legacy of peace and reconciliation will live forever
‘We are not negotiating with an effing fax machine! Get yourself personally involved,’ John Hume once shouted at British prime minister Tony Blair. He listened and flew to Belfast. It was a pivotal moment, writes Máiría Cahill
JOHN Hume was used to speaking in parliamentary venues worldwide, yet also made time to speak to schoolchildren. He was being ferried to one such engagement in Thornhill College in his hometown in 1999 by his staff member Ronan McCay in a Ford Fiesta, which had acquired a big dent in the driver’s door. McCay recalls being “mortified” at the state of his car when he pulled into the grounds, as a crowd had gathered outside. “John didn’t care one bit,” he recalls. Just before he got out of the car, he asked McCay to reach into the back seat and pass him a tattered supermarket plastic bag. Inside, in its box, was the Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to him a year earlier.
Hume donated the £250,000 prize money he received in trust for the Nobel Prize to the Salvation Army and St Vincent de Paul charities. Tim Attwood, a former SDLP councillor and close friend of the Hume’s, remembers him as “generous to a fault. He was always bringing smoked salmon as presents for staff members yet would walk around with holes in his shoes at times and wear them out”.
Hume travelled a lot, but when back in his constituency office he would go to the reception area and say to people waiting: “Do you want to see me?” Sometimes they would reply: “No, we’re waiting to see Pat.”
The quiet, non-judgmental, engaging woman married to John worked steadfastly at resolving people’s issues, whether in housing, health or prison conditions. As the priest at her husband’s funeral said last week: “If the history of Ireland is written and does not include Pat Hume it will be an incomplete history.”
There were others, too, like the formidable Berna McIvor who often closed down any internal dissent with a particular look of disdain over the rim of her glasses.
Once, Hume was in the office regaling staff with tales of a recent trip to California, where Gregory Peck’s son had a reception. He nonchalantly mentioned the name of a famous American actress who attended. One male staff member, taken with the woman, asked what she was like. Hume, joking, said: “Ah, you wouldn’t look twice at her in a supermarket.” McIvor cut across him, saying sternly: “Now John!” Thinking she was going to chastise him, those in the room fell silent, later erupting with laughter when she admonished: “When was the last time you were in a supermarket?”
Moments were not always light-hearted. Hume attracted external criticism and accusations that his negotiations with republicans were a solo run. Not so, says Mark Durkan, ex-SDLP leader, MP, and deputy first minister. “Talks in 1987 with republicans were followed by inter-party talks in 1988, Seamus Mallon and others participated in those. There were Donegal conversations happening between John Hume and the late solicitor Paddy McGrory; then John confided in me about being approached by Fr Alec Reid, about the possibility of talks commencing with Adams.” Durkan was concerned about it leaking in advance of the 1987 Westminster election, and urged caution.
Things did get hot and heavy at times. On one occasion, Seamus Mallon was arguing about NIO discussions with younger members of the party around replacement of Diplock courts with a three-judge panel, mid-Anglo Irish Agreement discussions. Mallon thought they were undermining him and Durkan tried to calm him down. In an effort to try to swipe him away, Mallon accidentally hit him in the face instead. “I received a fulsome apology and within weeks, Seamus was asking John if he would send me down to work on his election campaign. As campaign manager, Seamus abided by my suggestions and instructions, though complained at one stage that while knocking on every farm lane house, the occupants would invite him in and give him boiled eggs. ‘They’re doing something to my health, and it’s not great for those in the car with me!’ he said.”
Even his fiercest critics would agree that Hume exited the talks with Adams with the integrity he’d entered. He was someone who condemned paramilitary and state violence alike and never sought to defend it through politics of non-condemnation.
He was hugely critical of the IRA, despite talking to them: “We have pointed out in critical statements of their actions that the IRA has bombed factories while Sinn Féin shouts about unemployment; that the IRA shot a teacher in a classroom, killed school bus drivers, killed people on campuses, and then Sinn Féin lectures us about education; that the IRA maimed and injured, and carried out attacks in hospital precincts while Sinn Féin talks about protecting the health service… in our view, the IRA created as much discontent and deprivation.”
Still, many were worried. It is easy in 2020 to lambaste critics, as if they somehow stood in the way of peace. In the mid-1990s, however, the main opposition from those opposed to the talks was that the IRA were still killing people — and some feared that Hume would give legitimacy to Adams and Co. It was a hugely stressful time for John, and his wife Pat, who herself had doubts and asked him — in the aftermath of the Shankill and Greysteel atrocities — to consider stopping.
There were also charges that Hume disregarded unionist thinking while Mallon embraced it, though at the time of Brooke/Mayhew, unionists wanted talks during the suspension of Anglo-Irish Agreement discussions. Ironically, Hume was keen, Mallon hesitant. “There was a convergence between John’s talks with unionists and separately with Adams,” says Durkan. “He knew that if it worked, then foundations could be built towards all-party talks, and ultimately agreement.”
Durkan explains: “Seamus was good at testing John’s thinking. Mallon got the best out of Hume.”
I asked Seamus Mallon last year in an interview whether he had become de facto leader, while Hume was travelling around the world. “John had been in the United States, he was there for quite some time, and I had to get on with it… I wouldn’t overstate it,” he said quietly.
At a 2015 tribute dinner for Mallon, Pat Hume wrote: “His relationship with John was based on shared values. This allowed them to develop a culture within the SDLP of vigorous and lively debate. They complimented one another in their roles... John and Seamus had a fiery relationship, based on immense respect and mutual trust.”
They certainly made a formidable double act in negotiations. There was a particular issue when Mo Mowlam reneged on agreement on the 1997 Garvaghy Road march. The SDLP was angry, Durkan explains. “We told her decisions about marching could not be made on who posed the biggest threat, and she agreed. Mo then, through tears said: ‘If you’re saying that the SDLP can no longer trust me, I will resign.’ John and Seamus looked at each other, taken aback. ‘You get it,’ he told Mowlam, ‘but your replacement might not.’ Mallon leant back and said quietly, ‘No, we’re not going to give Flanagan your head.’
“Sometimes John would get frustrated with Mo, and go into finger-wagging mode, and she would demur and say, ‘Yes daddy, that’s right.’ On other occasions she playfully called him ‘s**tface’. He took it well. That was all part of Mo’s banter at the time,” Durkan recalls.
“She was one of the first weekend guests at the Humes’ house in Greencastle,” he adds. “I was bringing her from a speaking engagement at Strabane and Mo asked me, ‘Do you know what colour the bathroom is?’ I replied that I didn’t, but thought it was white, and she got me to stop at the shop. Mo went in, and emerged asking me to go lift a box that she had bought as a present. We arrived to John’s house with over 70 white toilet rolls. John met us at the door, a bewildered look on his face, as she gestured to me. ‘If it doesn’t match, it’s his fault!’ she shouted.”
It wasn’t all banter. “During the Blair era, the British faxed a draft of the text a fortnight before the agreement for ‘John Hume’s eyes only’. I sat down with John and Seamus and we could see that the text was wrong and likely contained a Powell draft based on what some of the unionists wanted. We contacted George Mitchell, Paul Murphy and Mo Mowlam, none of whom were aware of it. John and Seamus made it clear that they wanted a meeting with Murphy. We arrived and John announced he was leaving to head to Downing Street, and left Seamus and I with Murphy. Murphy joked that we were treating him as a hostage while Hume went to Number 10.”
Later that day Hume informed Durkan that he had gone directly to Blair and shouted: “We are not negotiating with an effing fax machine! Take those talks out of that awful building and get yourself personally involved — the talks have to be inclusive.” The British listened, scrapped the text and Blair flew to Belfast. It was a pivotal moment in getting the Good Friday Agreement over the line.
As well as his forthrightness, many have recalled his fondness for parties. Tim Attwood recalls one such occasion. “The day after the Nobel Peace Prize announcement, the SDLP was having its annual dinner in Dublin. I rang Bono to see if he would come and congratulate John. He invited John, Pat and myself for brunch on Sunday in Killiney.
“On Sunday morning I drove John and Pat to Killiney. When we got to the black gates of Bono’s house, there were about 20 teenage French fans outside the house. As the gates opened, John turned to me and said: ‘How did they know I was coming?’ I said: ‘John, they are not here for you.’
“Inside we received a rapturous welcome. Bono said: ‘John, nobody deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than you,’ and invited him to speak. John replied: ‘Bono, most people thinks pop stars’ heads are in the clouds. Well, can I say to you that you and your band are different. You brought out young people to the Yes gig. You made the difference between Yes and No. You won the Good Friday Agreement.’ It was a short and stunning few words which left Bono speechless and everybody else in tears.”
Attwood has been instrumental with others in setting up the John and Pat Hume foundation for peace and reconciliation, to celebrate and advance their vision of non-violent change-making and inspire future leaders.
In later years, dementia took hold of John Hume, leaving him unable to remember his efforts to bring peace to Ireland.
What he achieved, though, will never be forgotten.
John Hume condemned paramilitary and state violence alike