“Nobel laureate and former SDLP leader John Hume died last night,” the statement read. “We all live in the Ireland he imagined – at peace and free to decide our own destiny. Thanks, John. ”
Hume was one of the architects of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the violent conflict in Northern Ireland by bringing Irish trade unionists and Republicans into a power-sharing government.
Later in the year he and David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of their work “to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland,” according to the Nobel committee. .
In its 1998 statement announcing the award, the committee wrote that the SDLP statement also included a quote from Hume himself: “I never thought in terms of being a leader. I thought very simply in terms of helping people. “
