Opinion

Tom Kelly: John Hume would expect the current SDLP leadership to write their own history

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly

Tom Kelly is an Irish News columnist with a background in politics and public relations. He is also a former member of the Policing Board.

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood SDLP leader Colum Eastwood

Watching the very dignified funeral of the former SDLP leader, John Hume on RTE, I was quite moved by the simplicity of the service and the example in leadership displayed by the Hume family.

Looking at some of the mourners present, I was also struck by the fact that 2020 truly marks the end of an era for the SDLP with the passing of both Seamus Mallon and John Hume.

As they walked into the beautiful St Eugene’s Cathedral, SDLP veteran followed SDLP veteran. Dr Joe Hendron, Bríd Rodgers, Sean Farren, Denis Haughey and Alasdair McDonnell, all either octogenarians or septuagenarians. Their days of political service over, they each have a story to tell which may not be fully recorded or appreciated by history.

Despite their longevity in the public eye some of them didn’t hold meaningful public office until they were in the sixties. It is testimony to their tenacity that they stuck on the long road from the civil rights movement to the Good Friday Agreement. It is sometimes forgotten that constituency servicing was often operated out of their homes and without any financial support.

It is worth noting that two of the SDLP veterans, namely Joe Hendron and Bríd Rodgers, were amongst the bravest politicians in Northern Ireland.

The Upper Bann constituency when represented by Rodgers saw some of the worst atrocities and sectarian murders of the entire Troubles. Those were the days when the ruthless loyalist killer Billy Wright and his LVF henchmen seemed to have free rein to carry out their murderous activities.

Rodgers was one of his most outspoken and vociferous critics. She never flinched despite attempts to intimidate her.

In the late eighties, along with two international visitors, I slipped into the Free Presbyterian Church on the Ravenhill Road to hear Paisley preach only to discover that amongst the various condemnations of ‘Ulster’s enemies’ as defined by Paisley, Bríd Rodgers was right up there with the “treacherous” Margaret Thatcher and “old red socks” - the late Cardinal Cahal Daly.

Joe Hendron or ‘Dr Joe’ as he is affectively known, is one of those few politicians known by his first name. He is an affable and congenial figure respected on all sides of the political spectrum. But beneath the smile there is a man with the heart of a lion. He survived the electoral cockpit of West Belfast for over thirty years. Few will forget his bravery in visiting the Shankill in the aftermath of the Shankill Road bomb or that loyalists tried to kill him at his home only weeks after he became a MP.

Today’s cadre of SDLP politicians face different issues to their predecessors. The threat of violence, whilst not completely receded, is not anywhere near the scale faced by their political predecessors.

When John Hume retired, Mark Durkan, his successor, was cut from the same cloth. But unfortunately for him the electorate was changing and looked elsewhere.

Now Colum Eastwood, Nichola Mallon, Claire Hanna and Daniel McCrossan and others are finding their own niche from which to claw back an audience from a new generation. The recruitment of Matthew O’Toole was seen by many outside observers as quite a coup and a statement of ambition by the SDLP.

Unsurprisingly there has been much talk over the past number of days about harnessing the spirit of John Hume to revive the SDLP. True the story of Hume does need to be better understood by future generations. Already too much credence is given to a false narrative about the campaign for civil rights, the justification for an unwarranted IRA war and who actually were peacemakers as opposed to the protagonists and provocateurs.

The future success of the SDLP will rely much more on Colum Eastwood and his colleagues making their own footprints on the political landscape than any invocation to the past.

John Hume would expect no less of them than to write their own history.