JOHN HUME
in
AMERICA
Para la Pulpicita y in memoriam Tian.
JOHN HUME
in
AMERICA
FROM DERRY TO DC
Maurice Fitzpatrick
First published in 2017 by
Irish Academic Press
10 George’s Street
Newbridge
Co. Kildare
Ireland
© 2017, Maurice Fitzpatrick
ISBN 9781911024958 (Cloth)
ISBN 9781911024972 (Kindle)
ISBN 9781911024989 (Epub)
ISBN 9781911024996 (PDF)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Interior design by www.jminfotechindia.com
Typeset in Minion Pro 11/14 pt
Jacket design by www.phoenix-graphicdesign.com
Front jacket centre: Left to right: Tip O’Neill, Ronald Reagan, John Hume, Ted Kennedy and Peter Barry, St Patrick’s Day, 1983. (Courtesy of the Seán Donlon Collection)
Top left: John Hume and Speaker Tip O’Neill, at O’Neill’s ancestral home place in Drumfries, Co. Donegal, 1979. (Courtesy of The Derry Journal)
Top middle: John Hume and President Clinton in the Oval Office, 1990s. (Courtesy of the Hume Family Collection)
Top right: John Hume confronts a British army soldier at Magilligan Strand on 23 January 1972 during a protest against Internment Without Trial. (Courtesy of The Derry Journal)
Jacket back: President Bill Clinton, Pat Hume and John Hume, 1990s. (Courtesy of the Hume Family Collection).
CONTENTS
Foreword by Senator George J. Mitchell
1The Journey towards Politics, 1964–74
2The American Dimension Unleashed
3The Growth of the Irish Machine in Washington
4Washington: Shifting Policy in London on Ireland, 1977–81
5A Politics of Conscience: Human Rights and Democracy
6From Rejection to Acceptance
7Hume–Adams, 1985–8
8Washington and Europe, 1988–93
9The Political Process and the Peace Process, 1993–8
Epilogue: Echoes Down the Years
Appendix: John Hume’s Nobel Lecture
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Michael Lillis has provided unremitting support for the book and was at all times unintrusive in offering his perspectives for which I am most grateful. I am also grateful to Frank Sheridan and Tom Fleming for their huge help in research; to Pat Hume, John Hume Jr and Aidan Hume and the Hume family for their comments and help; to Sean O’hUiginn for reading the book in an early draft. Responsibility for any mistakes is mine.
Infinite thanks to Marina for her endless patience with my absences and to Seamus and Bernadette Fitzpatrick, and Orla and Natasha Fitzpatrick. Thanks to Eoin Brophy, Josephine Farrelly and Hume Brophy.
I am grateful to the interviewees who include (in alphabetical order) Gerry Adams TD, Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair, Bono, President Jimmy Carter, President Bill Clinton, Senator Chris Dodd, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Ambassador Seán Donlon, Congressman Charles Dougherty, John A. Farrell, Robert Fisk, Mayor Ray Flynn, Loretta Brennan Glucksman, Pat Hume, Ambassador Robert Hunter, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Senator Paul Kirk, Ambassador Michael Lillis, Sir John Major, Seamus Mallon, Eamonn McCann, Karl E. Meyer, Senator George Mitchell, Congressman Bruce Morrison, Matthew Murray, Congressman Richie Neal, Prof. Brendan O’Leary, Tom O’Neill, Ambassador Sean O’hUiginn, Paul Quinn, Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith, Ted Smyth, Nancy Soderberg and Lord David Trimble.
Thanks also to Richard Ryan, Dr P.J. McLoughlin, Mark Durkan, Jim King, Prof. Ronan Fanning, Dr. Martin Mansergh, Phil Coulter, Austin Currie, Hugh Logue, Brian Barrington, Chuck Daly, Christine Daly, Ivan Cooper, Frank Costello, David McKittrick, Martin McGuinness, Ambassador Peter Jay, Jimmy Neary, Tom Melia and Kevin Cullen.
And thanks to Ciaran Murray, Tom Arnold, Paul Duane, Eugene and Adele Hutchinson, The American Ireland Funds, The Derry Journal, Sean McLaughlin, Dr. Niall Ó Dochartaigh, Donal Donovan, Mike Connolly and Becky Hitchcock, Tom O’Grady and Katie Conboy, Prof. Mike Cronin, Prof. Crawford Gribben, Jack Roney, Charles H. Dolan, Aideen Kane, Bill McNally, Francis and Gena McGrath, Joseph and Sabryna Reciniello. I am grateful for the institutional support of the Moore Institute NUI Galway, the Cavan Arts Council, Boston College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast.
He looked at this as a political process that was going to be built upon different traditions and mutual respect. It was going to be resolved in a political evolution … A process was going to be established that he believed could move the whole debate and discussion within a non-violent framework and could result eventually in some settlement … It was important to listen to someone who had suffered the way he had, and had shown the courage and determination he had shown, living on the ground as he was and experiencing the harshness he was experiencing. I believe it’s important to listen to the ones who are risking their lives and are attempting to do it in a non-violent way.
Ted Kennedy on his first meeting with John Hume in 1972 (interview with Edward M. Kennedy, 27 February 2006)
FOREWORD
John Hume: Founding Father
The all-party peace talks that began in Northern Ireland in June 1996 were the product of an effort that spanned decades and involved the British and Irish governments and political leaders from Ireland and Northern Ireland. The talks were cumbersome: two governments, ten political