John Hume

Obituary: Jim Fitzpatrick, lawyer, newspaper proprietor, promoter of peace and consensus in Northern Ireland

James (Jim) J Fitzpatrick, who has died at the age of 92, was an important figure over many years in the media and politics of Northern Ireland. He was born in Belfast on July 15, 1929, a son of prominent solicitor James F Fitzpatrick and Ann (née Boylan), a schoolteacher from Ballybay, Co Monaghan. Jim was one of eight children .

Mary Crilly, sexual violence victims’ rights campaigner, is granted the freedom of Cork

A crusader for the rights of sexual violence victims has been honoured with one of the nation's highest honours.

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Frank Coughlan Opinion Are you a true Gael or a Billy Boy? Don’t look too close for answers

Words have meanings. Just as well because otherwise we’d have no need of them and I, for one, would be out of a job.

Editorial Opinion Northern Ireland deserves good solid governance

In the 1890s, Richard ‘Boss’ Croker defined a “mugwump” as a man in politics “who never votes for anybody, but who is always voting against somebody”.

Obituary: Michael O’Kennedy, Fianna Fáil stalwart whose support helped Charlie Haughey become taoiseach

In a political career spanning four decades Michael O’Kennedy, who has died at the age of 86, held a wide range of cabinet posts, serving also as a member of the European Commission as well as two terms in Seanad Éireann.

President and Taoiseach lead tributes after death of Michael O’Kennedy

Michael D Higgins and Micheál Martin have led tributes following the death of former Fianna Fáil minister and European commissioner Michael O’Kennedy. He was 86.

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Simon Coveney Opinion I was there to acknowledge peace – what happened was a shameful echo of a darker time

On March 25, I was in Belfast for an event with the John and Pat Hume Foundation on “Building the Common Ground”.

UVF are believed to be behind the van bomb hoax that forced Coveney off stage

The UVF are suspected of being behind a loyalist hoax bomb attack at an event which Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney was addressing yesterday.

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‘I would say without hesitation this was ‘sheer unadulterated murder’— timeline to a travesty

August 9, 1971 Introduction of internment. Ordered by the Stormont government and targeted at those suspected of creating trouble, the crackdown means people can be held without trial. In a series of raids across Northern Ireland, 342 people are arrested and taken to makeshift camps. Twenty-five people die in street violence in the four days after the policy was introduced.

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Máiría Cahill Opinion What’s missing from politics today is personality — and public trust

In July 1998 Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn were murdered when a loyalist petrol-bomb attack sent their Ballymoney house aflame in one of the most despicable acts of Northern Irish violence. They were aged just 10, nine and eight.

State Papers: London ‘apoplectic’ over Gerry Adams getting visa to visit US

US officials were concerned about allowing Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams into the country in 1994 as part of the tentative peace process amid concerns over public sensitivities about terrorism in the wake of the original 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York.

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Frank Coughlan Opinion Hard to agree on birth of State in shadow of gunman

So where to begin? With the Irish State, that is. When did it get its stamp of legitimacy? That evergreen question raised its head again when the centenary of The Treaty was marked with something well short of fanfare on December 6.

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Máiría Cahill Opinion Dithering, craven Executive flutters the white flag again

You couldn’t throw a stone where I grew up and not hit a piece of graffiti or a wall mural with some message or another. “Brits out” screamed white capital letters on street corners, “Victory to the Blanketmen” on others — images of long-haired skinny men with ribs poking out, terrifying then, to this child who took them under her notice.

Pride of place: €50,000 John Hume portrait to go on show at art exhibition

A new portrait of Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume is to be unveiled at a major art fair in Dublin.

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Bishop Alan McGuckian Opinion The partition debate: Gathering together in faith and hope is more important than who’s on the guest list

Some of us will gather together on October 21 in Saint Patrick’s Church of Ireland cathedral, Armagh, to reflect and pray together in hope on the occasion of the centenary of partition and the formation of Northern Ireland.

Pat Hume’s strength and stoicism helped forge peace deal

Three years ago I had the privilege to sit with Pat Hume for five hours as she recounted her ‘story’. I was working at the time on a BBC television documentary series about the Troubles and had approached Pat about her husband John Hume’s pivotal role in the peace process.

John Hume’s family gift Nobel Peace Prize to people of Derry

Three major international peace prizes awarded to the late John Hume are being gifted to the people of Derry.

Eamon Dunphy defends criticism of John Hume for holding secret talks with Sinn Féin at height of the Troubles saying it gave “some kind of legitimacy” to IRA murders

Eamon Dunphy has defended his past criticism of John Hume for holding secret talks with Sinn Féin during the height of the Troubles.

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Billy Keane Opinion No expense spared - until John Hume ate five lunches and seven dinners in one day

This is a story about John Hume who ate for the sake of the freedom of speech, and he never heard a word about it.

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Etain Tannam Opinion Hume's legacy not just the peace process of yesterday, but a shared island of tomorrow

'The Border is not a line on the map. It is a mental border built on fear, prejudice and misunderstanding and which can only be eradicated by developing understanding and friendship. This is the real task which faces those who genuinely want to solve the Irish problem. Its weakness is that it is undramatic. Its virtue is that it is the only way'. - John Hume, The Derry Journal, March 13, 1970.

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Woman who comforted John Hume in wake of Greysteel breaks silence after 27 years

It was a brief moment - an act of compassion to John Hume from a stranger amid unspeakable horror - that turned out to be a pivotal moment in the peace process.

Cross-border John Hume memorial university proposed

A cross-border university in memory of the late SDLP leader and Nobel Laureate John Hume has been proposed.

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Michael Lillis Opinion Critics poured vitriol week after week, but John won in the end

John Hume, the late Ronan Fanning - Sunday Independent columnist and distinguished historian - and I met at the funeral in Cahersiveen in August 1993 of the great journalist, our friend Liam Hourican.

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Eoghan Harris Opinion Hume's noble work for peace has cost us a high political price 

Hours after the death of John Hume, Gerry Adams, in his opening statement to RTÉ, laid down the line later to be followed by the southern media.

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Máiría Cahill Opinion A giant whose legacy of peace and reconciliation will live forever

John Hume was used to speaking in parliamentary venues worldwide, yet also made time to speak to schoolchildren. He was being ferried to one such engagement in Thornhill College in his hometown in 1999 by his staff member Ronan McCay in a Ford Fiesta, which had acquired a big dent in the driver's door. McCay recalls being "mortified" at the state of his car when he pulled into the grounds, as a crowd had gathered outside. "John didn't care one bit," he recalls. Just before he got out of the car, he asked McCay to reach into the back seat and pass him a tattered supermarket plastic bag. Inside, in its box, was the Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to him a year earlier.

Obituary: John Hume

John Hume was a towering figure in the history of Ireland in the latter half of the 20th century when 'the Troubles' was a major international conflict and at times, he alone seemed to be the voice of reason in a sea of violence and bloodshed.