Loyalists and republicans were opposed to the SDLP leader’s efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland, as these extracts from a new book by Stephen Walker show
Loyalist and republican paramilitaries were opposed to the SDLP leader’s efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland, as these extracts from a new book by Stephen Walker showJohn Hume, Pat and their five children, Therese, Áine, Aidan, John and Mo, lived close to the Bogside in Derry. Photograph: Leif Skoogfors/Corbis Historical/Getty.
What the IRA planned to do with Áine Hume had its members successfully kidnapped her is not clear. Was it an attempt to get her father to leave politics? What is clear is that the IRA had a deep loathing for Hume and his politics. Journalistrecalls how he was viewed by them: “They hated him – that is not too strong a word to say. The people who would become the Provos – Provisional Sinn Féin or the Provisionals at the time – hated John Hume.
Politics was a dangerous world, and Hume’s children had to try to learn to deal with the consequences of being in the public eye. There would be demonstrations and protests outside the family home, fake bombs were left in the street, and there were abusive phone calls, as Therese Hume recalls: “There would have been a lot of threatening letters, threatening phone calls, bullets sent in the post one time, a couple of bullets sent at different times.
As Hume fielded calls from party members wanting to know what was going on, Adams was also trying to get in touch with the Foyle MP. Adams had been with Hume the day before but was now across the Border, some 14 miles from Derry on the Inishowen peninsula.
The Hume family were shattered by the events on the Shankill Road and Hume himself came under intense pressure in the media to end his association with the then Sinn Féin president. Pat Hume recalled the hours that followed: “The phone started going, ‘John, the talks have to end. You can’t continue to give credibility to these people.’ And so the pressure mounted and mounted.”
Like many times before, the Humes were in the line of fire. These were dark and frightening days in Northern Ireland, and a new generation of people were being traumatised by violence. As the funerals were being organised and the injured continued to be treated, the very thought of a political breakthrough seemed fanciful and far-fetched.
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