As tributes to John Hume poured in yesterday, we heard he was a giant of Irish nationalism, a great peacemaker, a true hero. But for many the peace process was a long time ago, and though we can rattle off the names of towns and atrocities, whether we like to admit it or not, many of us switched over when something about the north came on the television[1]. And even if we didn’t, the high politics of it went way over most of our heads. I studied a bit about Northern Ireland when writing one thesis or another, and rather than reiterating the fact of John Hume’s greatness, I thought I’d throw together a bit on why he was great, and what his efforts achieved.
For me, it will always be his perseverance; his unwavering faith in peace even when it seemed at its furthest away. Thirty years, in any situation, is a long time to beat the one drum, even the righteous one.
For John Hume, peace and social justice went hand in hand. His father said “you can’t eat a flag”[2], that flag waving – with one side shouting at the other – wouldn’t put food on the table. John Hume founded the Credit Union movement to allow working class to people to gain access to credit. He lobbied tirelessly at local and international level for investment into Northern Ireland[3]. He was always on the hustle for investment, when others were focused on flag-waving.
John Hume preached gospel of non-violence, even when many had given up on the idea of politics, peaceful protest and patience solving anything. Think of how many countries today are turning to far-right populist figures, and then imagine how wholly and completely inadequate politics and protests must have seemed to many against the appalling the daily violence of the Northern Ireland conflict. People gave up on non-violence and politics and talks, and people gave up on Hume but Hume never gave up on non-violence, even in the worst of the horrific sectarianism and injustice.
He saw hate as a waste of time and energy.
He was famously annoying to interview, because of Humespeak – the constant reiterating of the same principles year in, year out.
He had the self-belief to repeat the same message for decades until eventually his analysis was accepted by almost everybody. Friends and foes referred to that message as the “single transferable speech” or “Hume speak” but he always insisted that since the problem hadn’t changed, neither had the answer.
Stephen Collins, Irish Times, 4 August 2020
To the unsolvable problem he championed a new dimension. Instead of British or Irish, orange or green, why not European? After all, the warring nations of the second world war had found ways to work together in the European Union – couldn’t both sides in Northern Ireland do the same? He was elected in 1979 and, as a respected MEP, he was able to engineer European Parliament debates on Northern Ireland and to spur European interest in ending the conflict and sorting out Northern Ireland. Hume and Ian Paisley had two of the three Northern Ireland seats at the European Parliament form 1979 until 1999 and routinely, away from the battlefield that was Northern Ireland, successfully lobbied as one for the people – all of them – of Northern Ireland.
Even further afield, he developed and pursued relationships within the US to bring pressure on the British. He realised that the British and Irish would basically never sort it out among themselves and needed external help. Thatcher was famously uniformed on Northern Ireland, insisting in typically dismissive fashion that Northern Ireland was as British as her constituency Finchley (as if civil war would have been allowed rage in Finchley for thirty years). But if Conservative governments wouldn’t listen to nationalist voices, they’d sure listen to Washington voices.
Along with Senator Ted Kennedy, Hume built relationships with three other highly influential figures (Tip O’Neill, speaker of the US House of Representatives, senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York State, and New York governor Hugh Carey). Every St. Patrick’s Day, they would urge Americans to renounce any action that promoted violence. Specifically, they urged (presumably) well-intended but misty-eyed Irish Americans to not give money to IRA fundraising groups, something that had a considerable effect on the IRA coffers.
The Four Horsemen (as Carey, Kennedy, O’Neill and Moynihan became known) helped persuade President Ronald Reagan to lean on Margaret Thatcher to sign up to the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement.
The 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement gave Dublin a seat at the negotiating table. Prior to that, although British governments talked with Irish governments, there was no official recognition of Dublin’s interest or role in representing the nationalist community of Northern Ireland. It happened largely because the New Ireland Forum – a Hume initiative – affirmed nationalist recognition of the validity of both nationalist and unionist identities and the need for both to be reflected and protected. This itself was new, because nationalist plans up to that point went little further than a United Ireland happening and unionists having to put up and shut up with that if and when it happened.
The US under Bill Clinton would later be central to promoting and progressing the peace process, something that would have been most unlikely without Hume’s cultivating of relationships.
I only touched on a few things above; but there’s also the Humes-Adams talks, the Good Friday Agreement itself, the protests against internment, and a myriad more. There will be no shortage of obituaries, there are good documentaries that will surely get an airing. If you read nothing else about him today, read this collection of Irish writers’ memories of him.
But don’t read or watch or download or scroll and then forget. As one academic wrote of Mandela on his death, “Celebrate him? Sure, but then make sure you’re willing to consider emulating him”[4]. History is a waste of time if we’re not applying its lessons to our own lives. John Hume said that what united us was far more important than what divided us. Practise that; let that and the candle for peace tonight be your tribute to him.
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[1] I knew a man who worked in RTE and a piece of his on Northern Ireland was airing on PrimeTime, the second of three items. He was able to track the ratings in real-time from his office. Viewership plummeted for the piece on Northern Ireland, but rose again for the third item. People had simply switched over or made tea. Also, As early as 1973, Fianna Fail tried to fight an election on resolving the violence in Northern Ireland but were rejected in favor of Fine Gael and Labour promises to sort the economy. The protest marches against Bloody Sunday and the hunger strikes were exceptions to the general apathy.
[2] Full quote from a 2006 interview. Asked about his father’s now-famous comment, Hume replied, “You see, what he meant by that was it was on the streets of the time elections were taking place as they always did with both sides waving flags. And young people getting all excited. And my father was standing watching this with me and he tapped me on the shoulder and he says “Don’t you get involved in that stuff, son”. I say “Why not, dad?”. And he says “You can’t eat a flag”. In other words what he was saying is real politics is about the living standards, about social and economic development. It’s not about waving flags at one another.“
[3] A story in today’s Irish Times was that Hume, upon realising one of the vice-presidents at electronics manufacturer Seagate had an Irish surname, persuaded them to set up in the city securing jobs for huge numbers.
[4] Blog post by Professor Timothy Burke, Swarthmore College, 6 December 2013.
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