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Would there have been a Good Friday Agreement without John Hume?

Maurice Fitzpatrick tackles this question in our second episode to mark the 20th anniversary of the historic agreement that marked an end to the Troubles.

From his early involvement as an activist in 1960s Derry, Hume the pacifist schoolteacher transformed the corrupt state that he found himself in by exploiting America’s influence on Britain.

Fitzpatrick puts the life and work of John Hume in full perspective. Drawing on access to Hume himself, as well as several US presidents and government leaders of Ireland and Britain, he gives an insider’s take on the constant agitation that animated the career of “probably the most significant character in Irish politics in the second half of the twentieth century” — a description by former ambassador Seán Ó hUiginn, guest of the first of this pair of interviews.

Our presenter Feargus Denman (left) interviewed Maurice Fitzpatrick in Belvedere House in central Dublin.

Maurice Fitzpatrick is the author of a biography of Hume (John Hume in America: From Derry to DC) and the prodcuer of the accompanying documentary (In the Name of Peace: John Hume in America). Both were released in 2017.