Northern Irish nationalists were the outright losers in the Anglo-Irish settlement of 1920–21.¹ Southern nationalists attained an independent state, albeit truncated and lacking the full sovereignty of the coveted ‘republic’ for which many had fought. Ulster unionists also compromised, accepting self-government in a six-county state to avoid coming under a Dublin parliament. But northern nationalists had little say in their fate. Partition left them cut off from the rest of their compatriots in the Irish Free State, and thus overnight they were transformed into a political minority.²

Unsurprisingly, northern nationalists’ response to the state in which they found themselves...

Born into the working-class, Catholic Derry on 18 January 1937, John Hume was by no means predestined to become a politician.¹ Indeed, under the influence of his father, Hume was actively discouraged from any interest in politics.² In a story which he often cites, Hume tells of a time when, as a boy of ten, he and his father were observing an election meeting of the Nationalist Party, attended by the customary anti-partitionist rhetoric and flag-waving. As Hume recalled: ‘When my father saw that I was affected, he put his hand gently on my shoulder and said, “Son, don’t get...

As 1969 unfolded, the situation in Northern Ireland continued to spiral out of control.¹ On the nationalist side, radical leftists and more traditional republican elements both saw the opportunity to encourage disorder and so to further destabilise the state. At the same time, the increasing insurgency of the minority appeared to vindicate loyalist suspicions of the civil rights movement, to feed Protestant fears that the nationalist community was indeed intent on overthrowing the government, and so to strengthen unionist opposition to reform. The growing distrust of ‘the other side’ allowed extremists in both communities to gain in influence.²

This process...

The collapse of the Unionist government did not halt the SDLP’s drift to a more nationalist position. If anything, the political climate in Northern Ireland following Stormont’s suspension only led to a further greening of the party. A number of factors contributed to this. Firstly, the prorogation of Stormont had in itself created a sense of euphoria amongst the minority community. Not only did it bring an end to a regime that had come to be despised by even moderate nationalists, but it also appeared to re-open ‘the Irish Question’ in its entirety. For many nationalists, the fall of Stormont...

The collapse of the Sunningdale Agreement dealt a massive blow to the SDLP. All that the party had worked for in the two years since Stormont’s collapse was, within just two weeks, swept away by the UWC strike. Nonetheless, after holding a series of internal party talks to decide the best way forward, Hume and his colleagues emerged from the ruins of Sunningdale with a renewed commitment to the basic formula behind the 1973 Agreement: executive-level power-sharing and an institutionalised Irish dimension.¹ Indeed, within a month of the Sunningdale’s demise, the SDLP released a policy statement which made clear that...

Between the collapse of the Constitutional Convention in March 1976 and the election of Margaret Thatcher in May 1979, the British government failed to produce any serious political initiative on Northern Ireland. Lacking in ideas, the serving Labour administration appeared happy to simply contain the ongoing conflict. However, it was not British troops that led this more military approach to the problem. Through a policy of ‘Ulsterisation’, British soldiers began to be replaced by indigenous forces, namely the RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment, in the front line of the battle against the IRA. As Paul Arthur explains, this policy offered...

As well as addressing those directly involved in the Northern Ireland conflict, Hume’s 1979Foreign Affairsarticle was written in order to appeal to the world beyond Britain and Ireland. This was evident merely in the fact that the paper appeared in a prestigious international journal, but also, more explicitly, in the piece’s frequent references to the ‘friends of Britain and Ireland’. In case these friends should miss their cue, copies of Hume’s paper were also posted out to a number of senior politicians and opinionformers in Europe and the US.¹

This was just one example of the efforts which...

As seen in Chapter 5, during the late 1970s, Hume and the SDLP had increasingly argued the case for Northern Ireland to be considered as a problem shared by Britain and Ireland – a problem which could, therefore, only be solved through joint action by the British and Irish governments. As a result, Hume and his colleagues were greatly encouraged by the significant developments in Anglo-Irish relations that took place in the early 1980s. Firstly, in May 1980, talks were held in London between the two heads of government, Charles Haughey and Margaret Thatcher. This was followed by a further summit...

Republicans understood the Northern Ireland conflict in imperial terms. Historically, Britain had always held economic interests in Ireland, and partition, republicans believed, served to secure those interests. Indeed, partition allowed the British government to maintain a foothold in Ireland – notably in the region with the most advanced industrial base – and a position from which it could continue to influence economic activity across the island. Similarly, republicans felt that London had strategic interests in Ireland. In the context of the Cold War, and whilst the Irish government refused to join the NATO alliance, Britain needed to maintain a military presence on...

As well as the disavowal of any selfish British interest in Northern Ireland, the other major development during Peter Brooke’s time as Secretary of State was his success in bringing together the local parties for their first formal talks in a over a decade. This only became possible after unionists accepted that their campaign of opposition against the AIA had come to naught. Despite vehement protests from the Protestant community – and indeed, despite her own misgivings over the results of the accord¹ – Thatcher would not renege on the Agreement which she signed.² Meanwhile, in the working of its institutions, Anglo-Irish...

Nearly four years passed between the paramilitary ceasefires of 1994 and the achievement of an actual peace agreement in April 1998. The road towards that agreement was understandably arduous:¹ over a quarter century of violence had created severe distrust on both sides of the conflict. On one, unionists and the British government doubted the republican movement’s conversion to wholly peaceful methods, and so argued that the IRA should decommission its weapons before Sinn Féin was allowed to the negotiating table. On the other, republicans saw the decommissioning issue as a ploy, designed to stall the political process, and in doing...

In December 1998, John Hume and David Trimble were joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, this recognising their efforts in brokering the GFA. In his acceptance speech in Oslo, Hume stressed one source of inspiration in particular:

[The] European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution. It is the duty of everyone, particularly those who live in areas of conflict, to study how it was done and to apply its principles to their own conflict resolution … The peoples of Europe … created institutions which respected their diversity … but allowed them...

Despite the boldness of this assertion – and, indeed, despite the fact that it is made by one of Hume’s party colleagues – it has a certain credibility. Of course, as demonstrated in this study, Hume was not the sole originator of the ideas that redefined Irish nationalism. Even before entering into politics, he had started to feed on the thinking abroad in his community. Thereafter, as an elected representative of that community, Hume imbibed ideas from various sources. Accordingly, much of what might be considered his political philosophy may in fact find its genesis in the thoughts of SDLP colleagues, the...