Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BILL IN EMOTIONAL TRIBUTE
brawn. In Ireland, he worked closely with seven taoisigh – Jack Lynch, Liam Cosgrave, Garret Fitzgerald, Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds, John Bruton and Bertie Ahern – leaving meetings admired and his reputation intact.
And in the US, he was able to sway the access London enjoyed in Washington, denting their often chilly analysis of the so-called Irish Question, while the Americans coaxed the British to the negotiating table with
about or what happened. He and I from our different perspectives agreed – and he was singularly against the IRA, let’s be clear about that – but he was a Derry man so he knew that republicans who were involved in armed struggle or supported armed struggle were serious.
“He may have thought they were, and he did think they were, totally wrong, but he knew they thought they were totally right. So the way to get at no one losing face. Hume visited the Clinton White House three times and made a special connection with Bill and Hillary, who returned the honour in transatlantic visits.
The former US president likened him to Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr as “Ireland’s most tireless champion for civil rights, its most eloquent spokesman for peace”.
Mr Hume’s life was often under threat, and his family at times in danger. He despised IRA violence and
that wasn’t to have the stand-off – of communities like this being victimised and being, I suppose, demonised. You probably couldn’t have interviewed me on television for periods of that.
“When John bent his will along with me and others to find an alternative way forward – that’s what worked.
“And I also think to his great credit, that when the news broke about him meeting with me and he was the victim of a tsunami of abuse and of vilification criticised IRA volunteers, many of whom lived in his neighbourhood.
But he met secretly with their political leadership over cups of tea in backstreet houses in Derry and Belfast. He was lambasted, scorned and mocked, and barrier after barrier was placed in his way.
But the boy from Nassau Street in Derry kept up his steady pace, head down, chin out, fuelled by the need to do the right thing. Finally, in 1998, with Ireland, England, Northern Ireland
– that he stuck with it. We must have met in secret and privately for over a decade against a background and foreground of terrible atrocities and other events and at the end of it all, it worked.
“And it worked not least because of John Hume – many others - but just because this is the sad day of his passing, let’s mark it that it would not have happened without John Hume or Pat Hume.” and the US all facing in the one direction, a new deal was written with the promise of peace guarded in each line of the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Hume may have told the world: ‘I never thought in terms of being a leader, I thought very simply in terms of helping people.” But he was a leader – a global leader – whose loss has left a gaping hole in many hearts.
The funeral Mass for John Hume will take place tomorrow at the Cathedral of Saint Eugene, Derry. The service at 11.30am will be taken by Fr Paul Farren, who will be the celebrant for the Mass and preach the homily.
The remains will be taken from Moville, Co Donegal, to arrive at St Eugene’s for 5pm today and social distancing will be strictly observed within the cathedral.
The funeral Mass will be broadcast at 11.30am on RTE One and televised on RTE News Now. It will be livestreamed at steugenescathedral.com