John Hume, tough but subtle architect of the peace process

Olivia O'Leary's documentary on John Hume, broadcast on RTE 1 last Wednesday, was a fine programme, offering an accurate portrayal of a remarkable man, or, more precisely, a remarkable couple. For few political leaders have both needed and received such a commitment from their spouse as Pat Hume has given John, and I know of what I speak.

In the early 1960s, long before I knew John Hume, I had reached the conclusion that a resolution of the Northern Ireland problem would require that a new dynamic be found within the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, based on a recognition of the reality of the existence of Northern Ireland, but demanding for its nationalist people the right to full participation in the life of that polity, on a basis of real equality with unionists.

From 1955 the Nationalist Party had given up its representation at Westminster, abandoning the field to abstentionist Sinn Fein candidates. And in the early 1960s, before the by-election that brought Austin Currie into politics, the only Stormont Nationalist MPs who seemed to me to have an appreciation of the radical changes needed in nationalist attitudes were brothers Paddy and Tom Gormley, MPs for Mid Londonderry and Mid Tyrone.

So, well before entering politics in the Republic, I had made contact with them, and also with other forward-thinking nationalists like Michael McKeown of the National Unity group, of which I became an honorary member, and another nationalist thinker, J.J. Campbell.

In the event, however, it was only with the appearance of the civil rights movement that the requisite new force emerged; one that, instead of futilely rejecting the existence of Northern Ireland, demanded the right to full participation for nationalist citizens in that entity on a basis of genuine equality. The party that eventually emerged from that semi-revolutionary process, the SDLP, brought into Northern Ireland politics a remarkable group of people. Indeed the quality of that political intake seemed threatening not alone to a divided unionism that had not received any equivalent injection of new talent, but to the politicians of our State, many of whom, I observed, had difficulty in accommodating themselves comfortably to this new and dynamic political phenomenon across the Border.

As deputy leader of the new party John Hume was already playing a crucial role in those early years, before succeeding to the leadership after Gerry Fitt's resignation in 1979. From the time I first met him in the autumn of 1969 he seemed to me to be the person who would eventually be able to provide the kind of strategic-thinking leadership of the nationalist community that could win for them in time equal status within Northern Ireland and create a new North-South relationship. But as, with the emergence of the Provisional IRA, the nature of the problem to be tackled changed radically, it soon became clear that he was also remarkably well equipped to handle this infinitely more complex political situation.

For the IRA's campaign of violence hardened unionist attitudes enormously and also made it much more difficult to persuade British governments to address the fundamental problem of the clash of identities in Northern Ireland. It also posed a threat of instability to the Republic.

What was needed was exceptionally tough leadership of constitutional nationalism, capable of standing up to the violence and intimidation of the IRA and of taking on Sinn Fein successfully at the polls, but also capable of continuing to pursue the reform agenda with the British government and, albeit less hopefully in this situation, with the unionist parties. In addition to these demands, the leadership of Northern constitutional nationalism also had to steer a delicate path between Fianna Fail and the other parties in the Republic, all of them prone to deluding themselves somewhat paranoically that the SDLP was siding with their domestic political opponents. This multiple agenda John Hume tackled with great skill and success, also contributing greatly by his principled stance to a radical rethinking of the simplistic antipartitionism that political parties in our State had for decades been pursuing thoughtlessly and provocatively.

Finally, John Hume offered the Irish State an uncovenanted bonus in the form of his successful diplomatic initiative vis-a-vis Congressional leadership in the United States, an initiative upon which skilful and dedicated Irish diplomats were then able to build, with astonishing results.

The skilful and sustained propaganda campaign of the IRA in the United States was thus successfully blocked, as were the clumsy anti-Irish campaigns upon which some British officials sporadically wasted time and energy in that part of the world in the 1970s and the early 1980s. Eventually the whole US political establishment was brought in to play a crucial positive role in the evolving Northern Ireland crisis.

My admiration for John Hume did not entail always agreeing with his tactics. During the late 1970s, when all political progress appeared to be blocked, he seemed to me to walk himself into something of a cul-de-sac. While maintaining his commitment to the consent principle he proposed that Britain abandon its "guarantee" to Northern Ireland. This involved an oversubtle distinction that I could not support.

But when Charles Haughey, new to power, sought to take advantage of this by making the "guarantee" issue his own, preparing a draft joint Fianna Fail government/SDLP position along these lines, I had to admire the skilful way in which John Hume evaded this trap.

To my recollection, only once did he take up a public position on an issue dividing the parties in our State. That was when in 1980, just after Charles Haughey's abortive attempt to remove Sean Donlon from the Washington Embassy, John Hume supported a demand by Frank Cluskey and myself that he dissociate himself publicly from the Irish National Caucus and Noraid in the United States.

I was determined that the New Ireland Forum would be open to unionist participation, however improbable that participation might appear, and that it would not be denominated as a "council", thus provoking unnecessary unionist hostility by evoking memories of the Sunningdale Council of Ireland proposal. As a result, that body took a shape somewhat different from what John Hume had proposed. Nevertheless, the credit for the original idea of such a body is undoubtedly his. And it was he who persuaded Charles Haughey to participate in it.

But his capacity for single-minded strategic thinking has been most striking in his efforts over the past nine years to bring an end to violence in Northern Ireland. This has involved a complex series of linked processes: first, analysing the thought processes of Sinn Fein/IRA; then persuading the British government to make the necessary statement that it has no selfish or strategic interest in Northern Ireland; and, finally, persuading Gerry Adams and his colleagues to agree a document which, if adopted by the British and Irish governments, could provide a basis for a cessation of violence and all-party talks.

This was a lonely as well as complex process and it involved overcoming more obstacles than most people believed could ever be surmounted. First of all, he had to make an act of faith in the leaders of an organisation which had an appalling record of murder as well as of attempted political intimidation of John Hume and members of his party. Next, it involved a serious risk of being seen as an unwitting tool of the IRA.

And it involved a strong probability that, whether he was successful or not, his own party would suffer from his efforts. Finally, success would depend on his ability to persuade both British and Irish governments to take serious security as well as political risks by backing his initiative.

Few political leaders anywhere would be prepared to launch out on such a dangerous and uncertain course. But what for most others would have seemed near-insanity was for John Hume a moral imperative. If there was even a remote chance of securing peace, then, in his view, these risks had to be taken.

Of course, this process may still fail, and even success, which I would define as a settlement not opposed violently by the existing IRA organisation, could bring fresh problems and even dangers in its train. But just as the vast majority of people in these islands four or three or two years ago, or even this time last year, could not believe that the UUP, Sinn Fein and the loyalist parties would ever join in negotiations in the same room, so also those who today foresee failure and a return to violence by the IRA as the only possible outcome may yet be proved equally wrong.

Of course very many people have played effective and courageous roles in this process. But if it eventually has a successful outcome, no one will be able to deny the main credit to John Hume and his wife Pat.