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John Hume

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Politician

The Resume

    (January 18, 1937-August 3, 2020)
    Born in Derry, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
    Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP; 1979-2001)
    Member of the European Parliament for Northern Ireland (1979-2004)
    Member of Parliament for Foyle (1983-2005)
    Co-recipient, with David Trimble, of the Nobel Peace Prize for their roles in negotiating the Good Friday Agreement that ended most of the violence in Northern Ireland (1998)

Why he might be annoying:

    He originally planned to be a priest but dropped out of the seminary to become a teacher.
    SDLP deputy Seamus Mallon said, ‘He didn’t take criticism well – in fact he wouldn’t take it at all.’
    Despite their sharing a Nobel Prize, there was reportedly bad blood between him and Trimble, with the result that when Trimble became First Minister of Northern Ireland, he passed over Hume for the post of Deputy First Minister (1998).

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was married to Pat Hone for sixty years.
    He founded the Derry Credit Union, became the youngest president of the Irish League of Credit Unions at age 27 (1964), and said, ‘It’s the thing I'm proudest of because no movement has done more good for the people of Ireland, north and south, than the credit union movement.’
    Five hooded men tried to firebomb his home (1987).
    In addition to the Nobel Peace Prize, he won the Martin Luther King Peace Award (1999) and the International Gandhi Peace Prize (2001), making him the first (and, at the time of his death, only) person to have received the three major peace honors.
    In a poll by broadcaster RTE, he was named the greatest person in Irish history (2010).

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 77.78% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 59 Votes: 44.07% Annoying