‘…it’s a United Ireland or Nothing’? John Hume and the Idea of Irish Unity, 1964–72

Abstract

This article explores John Hume’s thinking on Irish unity from the point of his first public commentary on the issue, a two‐part article written for The Irish Times in May 1964, through to the infamous statement he made in the aftermath of the Bloody Sunday killings in January 1972. In doing so it attempts to put in their proper context the words for which Hume he is most well remembered, particularly by the Protestant community and unionist commentators. The article shows that, at the outset of his political career, Hume’s position on Irish unity was aspirational rather than imperative. However, it demonstrates how political developments in Northern Ireland in the late 1960s and early 1970s – chiefly the increasing repression and radicalisation of the Catholic community, and the revival of the republican movement in that context – impacted on Hume’s articulation of his ideas regarding Irish reunification, such that this end came to be seen, quite wrongly, as his sole political ambition. The article concludes by suggesting that Hume’s original position on Irish unity was vindicated by the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.