The two major figures whose political careers span the Troubles - John Hume and the Rev Ian Paisley - are retiring from the European Parliament, writes Martin Mansergh.
Paisley, effectively DUP president, may be looking for a positive outcome to round off a life devoted to frustrating the peace efforts of others, now that the voters have passed responsibility to him. Hume has accomplished much more than could reasonably be expected of anyone and will always enjoy huge respect.
Hume's career, and the SDLP's role, are the embodiment of the moderate, yet radical, spirit at the centre of the civil rights movement. They tried to infuse into the North's politics some of the finest contributions of the 20th century, the values of Gandhi, Mandela and King.
Throughout the Troubles, Northern nationalism was represented politically mainly by the SDLP. It radiated the new moral self-confidence of a people that would no longer be browbeaten or put up with second-class citizenship. Hume was universally regarded as the reasonable face of Northern politics, not prepared to sacrifice human life for unattainable political goals.
He was a fount of creative ideas and initiatives leading to a new political settlement in place of the collapsed 1920/21 settlement. In the 1969 State papers there is a striking report of September 20/21 from Eamon Gallagher of the Department of External Affairs. Hume told him that there was too much emphasis on unity in (Jack Lynch's) Tralee speech, that recognition of Stormont was irrelevant, and that Dublin should concentrate its efforts on obtaining bilateral communication with London.
Since the unionist government would resist reform and could not be trusted, "Mr Hume's thoughts have now turned to the idea of a continuance of a Stormont parliament, but with a completely new form of administration, which would necessarily include representative views of the opposition, and be akin to a board of management." Hume was also conducting talks about creating a united opposition. One can see there the germ of the future Anglo-Irish framework, power-sharing, and, more immediately, the SDLP's formation. It was about creating a clear channel for a new democratic politics, long made impossible. The SDLP has had a consistent peace strategy for over 30 years.
It is Northern Ireland's loss that Hume and his then colleagues held executive power for only five months in 1973-4. The SDLP on its own was never again allowed to show what it was capable of delivering. Hume was not always popular when he criticised the unionist desire to hold its monopoly of power.
It is surely an indictment of the leadership of unionism that it was never prepared to share power with Hume and the SDLP until it had little option but to share it with Sinn Féin as well. During dark days the SDLP did not allow itself to be discouraged, nor did its creativity dry up. Hume and his colleagues guided successive Irish administrations and responsible Irish-American opinion, and in turn received their support. Hume was partner in turn of Lynch, Haughey, FitzGerald, Reynolds and Ahern.
The RUC Special Branch report of 1972, alleging that Hume and his colleagues were Irish Government intelligence agents, says nothing about the SDLP, but everything about the blinkered view of what was then a unionist police for a unionist people.
Sunningdale, the Anglo-Irish framework of 1980-1, the New Ireland Forum, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, were all initiatives inspired by, and centred on, the SDLP. The key elements were consolidated or further developed in the Belfast Agreement. Despite strong and intimidating challenges from many quarters, most nationalists followed Hume and his party throughout the conflict, and the danger of a more full-blown civil war was narrowly averted many times.
Hume's analysis of what was needed to resolve the conflict and to create a new Ireland has been vindicated. Alone among major leaders he embraced the vision of a united Europe and an agreed Ireland that would consign mutually ruinous conflict to the past, substituting the politics of co-operation and reconciliation.
After the Anglo-Irish Agreement, Hume turned his mind to the greatest task of all, bringing about peace, by entering dialogue with Sinn Féin. Paralleled by the public Hume-Adams statements of 1993, an agreed private document, put forward by the Irish government, became the basis, with some unionist additions, of the Downing Street Declaration, which was the prelude to peace.
His efforts were in some quarters much misunderstood. I was glad that the Sunday Independent paid tribute to him editorially last week, given its hurtful attacks in 1993-4. What he attempted was courageous and dangerous, but the prize was huge. It is sometimes suggested that, left to itself, the IRA would eventually have unilaterally stopped. How many hundreds more would have died while waiting for that?
Those who believe Irish democracy has been contaminated, greatly underestimate its strength and insult the commitment of those involved in the peace process to see that democracy will prevail. The notion of an unrepresentative and dissident militant republicanism having anything to offer Ireland today or in the future is comprehensively discredited. If a slightly constitutional republicanism is for the present in the ascendancy, it is based on firm expectations of the progressive retirement of paramilitary activity and capability. The SDLP remains a guarantor of the integrity of the peace process, supported by the main parties in the South.
The major contribution of his wife Pat Hume and his outstanding deputy Seamus Mallon, Dr Joe Hendron, Eddie McGrady, his successor Mark Durkan, Bríd Rodgers, Seán Farren, Denis Haughey and many others will be recorded. Hume's contribution is in the tradition of the Liberator Daniel O'Connell. John Hume did almost as much to raise his people.