Northern Ireland

Foundation marks 50th anniversary of John Hume arrest case

Future SDLP leader and Nobel Peace laureate, John Hume was arrested by British soldiers during a peaceful civil right's protest in Derry in August 1971. Picture by Alan Lewis, Photopress.
Future SDLP leader and Nobel Peace laureate, John Hume was arrested by British soldiers during a peaceful civil right's protest in Derry in August 1971. Picture by Alan Lewis, Photopress. Future SDLP leader and Nobel Peace laureate, John Hume was arrested by British soldiers during a peaceful civil right's protest in Derry in August 1971. Picture by Alan Lewis, Photopress.

The John and Pat Hume Foundation has marked the 50th anniversary of a landmark court case overturning the late Nobel Peace laureate’s conviction for disorderly behaviour.

Pictures of a water canon-drenched Mr Hume, who was Stormont MP for the city at the time, being frogmarched along Derry’s Lone Moor Road on August 26, 1971, were flashed around the world. The future SDLP leader was arrested along with other civil rights’ activists as they staged a sit-down protest to prevent the British Army from entering Derry’s Bogside.

It subsequently emerged that the arrest operation was led by later Liberal Democrat leader, Paddy Ashdown who died in 2018. Following conviction, the group appealed the case to the High Court where they won a victory when it was ruled that the British army had acted illegally.

The implication of the decision, at the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court, 50 years ago today, February 23, was that all previous British army activity in the North was illegal. However, the decision led to an all-night sitting of the Westminster parliament as the British government rushed through legislation to confer “retrospective legitimacy” on the army’s actions.

Writing about the case many years later, SDLP co-founder, Hugh Logue – who was arrested with Mr Hume – recalled being “dragged” along the street by soldiers.

Mr Logue said: “Others, including Mr Hume, were frogmarched by the arresting soldiers and all of us were spreadeagled against a wall on nearby Lone Moor Road.”

The 50th anniversary of the landmark case was marked by the Hume Foundation, established to promote the legacy of Mr Hume and his late wife, Pat with an international webinar on the literature and language of the civil rights’ struggle in 1960s Ireland and the US.