Lord Patten: “… the problem at heart is not the sausages you get from Sainsbury’s but the porkies that we all get … from Downing Street”

Chris Patten delivering inaugural Seamus Mallon Lecture for Hume Foundation over Zoom

Lord Patten delivered the inaugural Seamus Mallon Lecture this evening, organised by the The John & Pat Hume Foundation. His talk looked back at his time as a direct rule minister: “An appointment to the Northern Ireland Office was often compared with being sent by a Communist Party general secretary in the Soviet Union to manage a power station in Siberia.” He recalled some of his encounters with Seamus Mallon, wishing that there were: “more political leaders in Northern Ireland …

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Free event: Reflection on Seamus Mallon – A Shared Home Place at 7pm this Tuesday…

Today is the first anniversary of the passing of Séamus Mallon, former Deputy Leader of the SDLP, former Deputy First Minister in the NI Assembly, former MP and Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Tim Attwood, Hume Foundation Secretary said: “Seamus Mallon was a tough, tenacious titan of the Peace Process. As the Irish Times said in 1999: ‘Seamus Mallon has always been there, even in the darkest of dark days, never losing faith in the primacy of politics even …

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How Should we Remember Seamus Mallon? Together – in a Spirit of Christian Love and Forgiveness…

The passing of Seamus Mallon should remind us that Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace is due to the efforts of men and women of integrity whose non-violent politics and personal sacrifice got us to that point. We are fortunate that in the last year of his life, Seamus left us a memoir, A Shared Home Place, that not only recounted his historical role in the peace process but was orientated towards the future. In it, he advocated political ‘generosity’ and proposed …

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God bless you Seamus and thank you for all your work in helping to bring peace to this country. It’s up to others to get on with it now.

David Kerr was a Special Advisor and Press Secretary to David Trimble when he was First Minister in that period 1998-2001. I’m very sorry to hear of the death of Seamus Mallon tonight. When I worked with David Trimble in the First Minister’s office between 1998-2001, we worked closely with Seamus and his team, in his role as Deputy First Minister. He was a tough, principled and at times incredibly stubborn politician. Negotiating with Seamus took time because he was …

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Seamus Mallon RIP

The Former Deputy First Minister and Deputy Leader of the SDLP, Seamus Mallon has died at the age of 83. He was elected as the MP for Newry & Armagh from 1986 to 2005, and served as deputy First Minister of the NI Executive from July 1998 until November 2001. Speaking about his passing the SDLP Leader, Colum Eastwood said: “Seamus Mallon was a force of nature. “In the darkest days of conflict, when hope was in short supply, Seamus represented …

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A spot of SDLP infighting and a #GE1992 victory in West Belfast overshadowed by voter fraud and an election petition that threatened to unseat Joe Hendron #20yearrule

Official papers released under the 30/20 year rule document government analysis of the reasons for Joe Hendron’s West Belfast victory in the 1992 General Election, record a spot of SDLP infighting as election agent Tom Kelly airs his views on Seamus Mallon and John Hume ahead of a crucial court judgement on an election petition challenging the result. Voter fraud and personation was also under the spotlight, along with a decision to continue to exclude Sinn Fein from consultations about electoral spending.

RTE’s celebration of John Hume feels like nostalgia for a time that has gone

RTE have just screened a documentary In the Name of Peace; John Hume in America by Maurice Fitzpatrick which the film maker has kindly drawn to my attention. Being in London I cannot access it yet nor have I read his accompanying book. But from the YouTube trail, this is a major celebration of John Hume’s life and work. Anybody who was anybody is in it, led by Clinton and Blair, although Jimmy Carter was not quite so dazzled.  As …

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Clinton: “Keep the cranes up. Keep the voices free. Keep the votes fair. You’ll figure it out.” #GFA20

Political leaders of old and today gathered at Queen’s University, Belfast for a day of events focussed on the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said that people “should realise that this agreement was never going to support all the problems of Northern Ireland” while former US President Bill Clinton had a triptych of advice for NI: “Keep the cranes up. Keep the voices free. Keep the votes fair. You’ll figure it out.”

Seamus Mallon feels anger 20 years on from the Good Friday Agreement

.@SDLPlive‘s Seamus Mallon says he feels anger 20 years on from the #GoodFridayAgreement #GFA20 pic.twitter.com/R0JWtUBJ4U — BBC News NI (@BBCNewsNI) April 10, 2018 David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs

1991: Negotiating a Strand 2 talks venue + complaints that Paisley was locked out of his toilet #20YearRule

One single buff-coloured file, three or four inches thick, contains the stapled minutes of NIO meetings with political parties in May 1991 as they negotiated about the strand one, two and three talks. While perhaps the single most frustrating file I’ve flicked through in PRONI over the last couple of years, the level of detail in the civil service minutes of meetings is incredible, and the retention of humorous asides provides a lot of colour about the characters involved and their relationships.

Now the turn of Seamus Mallon at 80. Why he and Trimble were unable to unite over arms decommissioning remains unexplained

Following the tributes to John Hume on his 80th   birthday, the venerable SDLP deputy leader and  the initial deputy first minster Seamus Mallon has given a fascinating interview to the Irish News  for his own  80th. In passing I can’t help noticing the comparisons and contrasts with Sinn Fein. What are yours? On working with David Trimble, Ulster unionist leader and the first FM Mallon says his permanent secretary, civil servant Billy Gamble – “an absolute gem” – regularly had …

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Mallon says Sinn Fein played Hume like “3lb trout”

Seamus Mallon has been speaking to Talkback (interview to be played later today on Radio Ulster) where he reflects on his career and comments on his views about his then party leader, John Hume. Speaking to William Crawley, the BBC reports; John Hume was “no fool” but that Sinn Féin leaders played him “like a 3lb trout”. Mr Hume’s presence gave republicans a status almost validating what they did in the previous 30 years, he said. Mr Mallon reiterated previous …

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Seamus Mallon backs Colum Eastwood

From John Manley in today’s Irish News; Just over two weeks out from the crucial leadership vote, the one-time Newry and Armagh MP said he believed the Foyle MLA could unite the SDLP and end the “stagnation and negativity” that he believes has beset the party in recent years. Mr Eastwood (32) launched his bid to unseat SDLP leader Alasdair McDonnell last month. In the wake of May’s general election a host of party grandees and current representatives called for …

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Sorry Séamus, but there can be no such thing as retrospective democracy.

Séamus Mallon has a speech transcript in the Sindo today. In it he takes his usual stance on the counterproductive futility of armed republicanism. But one fundamental contradiction sticks out like a sore thumb. Early on he says: In that spirit let me say I applaud current efforts to make 1916 commemorations truly inclusive. In the event, the men and women of 1916 received a retrospective democratic endorsement which more recent violence including against this State has never obtained. But …

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Seamus Mallon and Brid Rodgers call on Alasdair McDonnell to step down

John Manley has a great scoop in today’s Irish News with comments from the former Deputy First Minister, Seamus Mallon on the leadership of Alasdair McDonnell.  It is no secret that some party members are unhappy with McDonnell but now one of the big beasts of the party has came out to call on him to go. Speaking to Manley he said that McDonnell should resign “as soon as possible” adding that if he acted decisively it would be good …

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Seamus Mallon: “No gobbledegook peace-nik speak, no motherhood and apple pie…”

Tom Kelly in the Irish News today makes a point worth re-iterating in the case of Seamus Mallon: Mallon is an erudite, eloquent but earthy politician. Listeners immediately get what he is saying. There’s no gobbledegook peace-nik speak, no motherhood and apple pie sweet nothings and certainly no pan European fudge eulogising about Franco-German love ins. Mallon like Seamus Heaney does his digging with language. And he did it in spades on the aptly named programme “For the record- Seamus …

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Seamus Mallon: “If we are going have integrity in Irish republicanism it has to be an organic thing…”

Marian Finucane caught up with Seamus Mallon when he was in Dublin recently with David Trimble to pick up their honorary degrees from Dublin City University. She did not pussy foot around, and began by asking the SDLP’s former Deputy First Minister, what he thought [in his own words] ‘needs to be said’: Stop this interminable failure to deal with issues, to them put them on the long finger, to treat them as though they didn’t exist. To run your …

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