https://news.sky.com/story/former-sd...-dies-12041452
John Hume: Former SDLP leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner dies
Quote:
Nobel Peace Prize winner John Hume, "the architect of the Northern Ireland peace process", has died.
The former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) had been ill for some time.
Having committed his life to the pursuit of Irish unity by peaceful means, he was fiercely criticised for holding secret talks with Gerry Adams.
But in 1993, Mr Hume persuaded the British and Irish governments that the gun could be taken out of Irish politics.
When the IRA declared its ceasefire the following year, Sinn Fein were brought in from the political cold.
It was the beginning of a peace process that would culminate in the Good Friday Agreement and power-sharing government at Stormont.
In 1998, Mr Hume and his Unionist counterpart David Trimble were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.
Speaking at the award ceremony in Oslo, Mr Hume said: "I want to see Ireland as an example to men and women everywhere of what can be achieved by living for ideals rather than fighting or dying for them."..........
........Author and journalist Eamonn Mallie, who knew him well, said: "Hume was driven by one thing - a passion for peace. He hated that violence. He resented that violence.
"At every conference, constant at the northern star, Hume spelled out, underscored, amplified, the grotesqueness of what the IRA were doing."
Mr Hume had come to prominence during the civil rights movement in his native Derry.
An MP for 22 years, an MEP for 25, he became a towering figure in the Anglo-Irish politics of the 20th century.
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A truly great politician. RIP dear man.