John Hume

So as some of us began to think about what on earth we were going to do to find a more peaceful future for our communities, we began to think about a different way of thinking about things.

And in particular, the analysis that particularly people like John Hume and myself came to was that our problem wasn't particularly structured.

It wasn't just policing or the administration of justice or economic unfairness or whatever.

It was fundamentally disturbed historic relationships between communities of people.

If you were ever even momentarily persuaded by that ancient belief that what you were buried with would be the thing that would guarantee your passage to the afterlife, well, here's one to chew on.

Might what you're buried in do the same job? Might a more frugal and sustainably made coffin find favour at the pearly gates? In recent times, willow coffins have been the choice of the families of John Hume, Shane McGowan, Charlie Bird and Moya Brennan.

As well as being environmentally friendly, they also sustain one of our oldest traditional crafts, basket weaving.

Rachel Breslin went to meet Colin McAteer, owner of Green Coffins on the Fannad Peninsula

So I'm very familiar.

John Hume is one of my heroes.

Yes.

So, but here's how I'm kind of setting this up.

Violence can move in such a cycle, you know, and that's I think one of the things we have to think about is the cycle.

If we do violence, return violence, you know, like when they found the peace process in Northern Ireland.

it was based on non-violence it was based on the the dr king's idea of non-violence and a lot of people had to come together and they had to disagree with each other and they had to compromise and not every you know it's not compromise always seems like a dirty word to people but you know now i go there probably once a year for the past oh gosh 10 or 11 years and uh you know they did it they they accomplished a peace process that was quite amazing through conversations and through hard conversations and through i mean john hume got his house firebombed by catholics now john hume is a catholic you know because they didn't like the way he was doing it

yeah

We know this will eventually come to fruition a long time later.

But October the 29th, 1976, John Hume, deputy leader of the SELP, Gerry Fitt was still leader.

Gerry Fitt was still leader.

Speaking from Washington last night, told the Irish News he was very pleased with talks he was having with US political church and business leaders and he expected an initiative by them early in January when the new president is in office.

They're keeping themselves well informed on the situation in Northern Ireland, he says.

This is John Hume, who at this time was, you know, cutting a lonely furrow, shall we say, but was making links with Europe and America.

Because this time, and we've discussed before, this is a time of complete political despair there's no political movement whatsoever the convention has collapsed the 74 power sharing collapsed there was no movement whatsoever and here's John Hume kind of going out to America trying to influence American policy to at least take an interest in

Ireland well it actually it pays off pretty much immediately because we'll be talking about this in I think the next episode is on Jimmy Carter becoming president And he does make a speech in 77 after he takes office, which is not co-authored by John Hume, but it's obviously a big input from John Hume about taking a more active role for the American government, which was a no-go, a no-no.

The bigger picture, agreed.

But then there's the John Hume route, for instance.

Yeah.

But you're far more drawn to McGuinness and the IRA

route.

I'm drawn to that because I had personal relationships with these men.

I didn't have a personal relationship with John Hume.

I met him a few times at the Derry match and it was sad to him because his mind wasn't where it is.

A wonderful time, in many ways the happiest professional time I've ever had.

Given that you visited Ireland frequently, I wonder, have you ever thought about basing a novel entirely around an Irish historical figure like Daniel O'Connell or Charles Stuart Parnell? Because there'd be a lot of opportunity to write about politics, including British politics, or indeed John Hume.

You know, I do sometimes think about it.

I mean, I love coming.

So, you know, it's definitely...

John Hume, if he hadn't got ill, would have walked it, wouldn't he? Absolutely.

Do you think he would have? He got ill pretty much around the time.

No, he did.