John Hume and the principle of change by consent

Deaglán de Bréadún writes a weekly column in The Irish News. This is his column this week, which makes for an interesting read.

ALTHOUGH both of us wrote in the same newspaper for many years, I don't recall actually meeting Michael Viney who passed away last week.

He lived off the west coast in County Mayo, from where he contributed a highly-regarded column titled Another Life, whereas, apart from several years in Belfast and six months reporting from Moscow in the Boris Yeltsin era, I was mainly based in Dublin.

His column started publication when he moved from Dublin to his new abode, which was around the same time that I began working casual shifts at The Irish Times, leading eventually to a staff position.

Michael's column continued appearing until February of this year, but it was only when researching his obituary for the Sunday Independent that I became aware of other very significant work he did as a news reporter in the sixties and early seventies.

Mainly encouraged by legendary editor Douglas Gageby, he wrote series after series of articles on such issues as the decline in numbers of the Protestant community in the south, the state of the Irish language, the level of alcoholism in Ireland and the way in which young offenders were treated in industrial schools and reformatories.

In the spring of 1964 he spent two weeks on the other side of the border and met a range of people from both sides of the religious divide. The result was a six-part series entitled Journey North, published in May of that year and described as the personal view of  "an Englishman domiciled in Dublin, reared in a mildly Anglican environment, but now a Christian of no denomination".

Having stayed for a good many days in Belfast, where his wide range of experiences included a sermon by Reverend Ian Paisley at the Ravenhill Free Presbyterian Church, he made his way by train to Derry. Striking a lighter note on arrival, he asked if the two denominations had different appearances and was told that Protestants had "tight, closed faces" whereas Catholics had "big eyes".

Visiting a bar in Creggan, he met two Catholics who had joined the British Army, one of them wearing a blazer with the badge of the Royal Army Medical Corps – something that you wouldn't have seen in a social setting in that district in later times.

Describing a private viewing of a documentary called A City Solitary, which had been shown shortly beforehand on the BBC, he wrote that "watching with me is John Hume, the Catholic teacher who wrote the script". The publicity Viney gave the film led to its being shown also by RTÉ television in the south.

Looking back on his trip at the end of the series, Michael wrote: "This tour of the north was one of the most depressing experiences I have known."

He said the common people were "oppressed and exploited... on the one hand by a Unionist Party whose public attachment to power and privilege is often medieval in its cynicism; on the other by a corps of nationalists who, with a few exceptions, encourage slogans as a substitute for thought".

He said the real divisions were "economic and social, not religious" and rather naively predicted that both sides of the divide would combine to advance the interests of the working class.

Viney's coverage resulted in the 27-year-old Hume receiving a commission from The Irish Timesto write about the position of Catholics in the north and how it might be improved: his first high-profile appearance in southern media.

Hume wrote that the younger generation of Catholics were "principally geared towards the solution of social and economic problems" and he added: "This has led to a deep questioning of traditional nationalist attitudes."

Sharply critical of the Nationalist Party, he said: "In 40 years of opposition they have not produced one constructive contribution on either the social or economic plane to the development of Northern Ireland, which is, after all, a substantial part of the united Ireland for which they strive."

Hume continued that the "dangerous equation of nationalism and Catholicism has simply contributed to the postponement of the emergence of normal politics in the area and has made the task of the unionist ascendancy simpler".

He urged the Nationalist Party to take a flexible approach to the unity question: "If one wishes to create a united Ireland by constitutional means, then one must accept the constitutional position."

In his 1997 biography of the Derry politician, Paul Routledge writes: "Here, in the starkest possible way, Hume set out the principle of change by consent and evolution that was to become both his guiding philosophy and his political trademark for the next 30 years."

Interestingly, the Nationalist Party agreed to become the official opposition at Stormont in February 1965, less than a year after those articles appeared in print. Its leader, Eddie McAteeer, lost his seat to Hume in the Northern Ireland general election of February 1969.

Consent and evolution are of course hallmarks of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement under which a united Ireland can only be achieved by majority approval granted separately on both sides of the border.

Incidentally, I note from Barry White's 1984 biography that, in 1967, John Hume was offered a job in schools broadcasting in Belfast with the BBC but turned it down. The twists and turns of fate can indeed be very significant.