The legacy of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and its leader, John Hume, has been widely celebrated in Northern Ireland and around the world. Hume was knighted by Pope Benedict XVI, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and the Gandhi Peace Prize, and befriended by the European and American political elite. Yet the vast literature on the Northern Ireland conflict is relatively sparse when it comes to Hume and his party. Seán Farren writes a detailed account of the SDLP and Hume's role in the Northern Ireland peace process in an attempt to solidify the party's legacy.
Farren came of age with Hume in the SDLP in the early 1970s and held numerous positions within the party. Hume's centrality within the party makes the book as much a defense of Hume's legacy as it is a defense of the party as a whole. Farren's insider perspective provides his account with both depth and richness, but it can at times be problematic. Farren demonstrates the strains within the party due to waning membership, departures by the founding generation, and financial problems. It is a top-down history from within the party. As such, neither the influence of women and the civil sector nor the perceptions of the SDLP from outsiders is highlighted. The strength of the book lies in its exhaustive discussion of SDLP manifestos and policy papers. It does lack some components a reader would expect when coming to a book written by a party insider: interviews granted due to his relationships with party leaders, personal anecdotes, and a sense of the tensions and friendships within the party that cannot be demonstrated by policy papers and memoranda.
The book is laid out in four main chronological sections. The first section covers the period from 1970 to 1976 in which the party was established. The founding leaders, including Gerry Fitt, Michael McKeown, Austin Currie, John Hume, Paddy Devlin, Paddy O'Hanlon, Ivan Cooper, and Paddy Wilson, envisioned a party centered around nonviolence, diminishing sectarian divisions, and promoting social democratic and labor values. Central to the SDLP was its focus on political and constitutional change, local government reform, and improved relations between the nationalist and unionist communities. The party moved away from the traditional nationalist approach of demanding British withdrawal. Instead, the SDLP argued that a united Ireland would be possible only with the cooperation and consent of the unionist community. This so-called principle of consent became a central tenet of the peace process.
The second section of the book details the period from 1977 to 1985 in which the party promoted a joint British-Irish approach to peace, which culminated in the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement. For both Hume and Farren, the Anglo-Irish Agreement was key to pushing forward the peace process, since it created a level playing field between nationalists and unionists (238). This was a particularly important development given the challenges of the period. The SDLP had been sidelined during the hunger strikes of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and it entered into a new era of electoral competition as the other nationalist party, Sinn Fein, entered electoral politics.
The period from 1986 to 1994 is the subject of the third part of the book. Farren details the SDLP's engagement with Sinn Fein at a time when it was still linked to paramilitary violence. The decision to enter into talks with Sinn Fein was a bold and controversial move. The two nationalist groups shared the goal of a united Ireland, but they differed dramatically on the means to achieve that goal. Outside the party, engagement with Sinn Fein was widely denounced as bestowing legitimacy on violent nationalists. For party members, the move was dangerous because it increased loyalist attacks on the SDLP. Farren argues that the SDLP's dialogue with Sinn Fein sowed the seeds of peace, though this was not evident at the time. Farren credits the talks with, first, leading to a ceasefire and, later, convincing Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein of the possibilities that lie in political negotiations. Farren builds up to the final section of the book, which covers the period from 1995 to 2000, as the pinnacle of the party's success and trajectory. Hume is portrayed as the architect of the ceasefires, the Good Friday Agreement, and the international body charged with decommissioning weapons. In the late 1990s, Hume and the SDLP were celebrated internationally, and their ideas became enshrined in the peace settlement. The parties committed to use only democratic means and to respect human rights; the principle of consent became established law.
One of the major strengths of the book is Farren's coverage of the SDLP's international connections to the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and Europe. From the beginning, the SDLP was dedicated to an all-Ireland approach to the conflict. The Republic of Ireland was crucial to sustaining the party financially and bolstering its political sway (70). Farren shows how Hume was able to recruit the American political establishment and strongly influence the US government's involvement in the conflict. In 1976, Hume convinced the “four horsemen” of Irish-American politics, Tip O'Neill, Edward Kennedy, Hugh Carney, and Daniel Moynihan, to renounce violence as a means to attain Irish unity. Hume also fervently championed European integration. Hume's dedication to the European ideals was shaped by his search for investment in Northern Ireland and his strong belief that the European institutions that had healed postwar divisions in Europe offered a model for Northern Ireland. The SDLP's support of Europe brought about the creation of a third seat in European Parliament, long held by John Hume. In addition, the party's involvement in Europe led to its strong influence over a substantial European peace fund.
Farren provides a comprehensive account of the important ways that the SDLP made peace possible in Northern Ireland. This is a critical contribution to a literature that all too often focuses on militants, not moderates. It is disappointing, though, that Farren ends the story in 2000. The chronology creates a convenient narrative for Farren: from the birth of the SDLP to the pinnacle of its success. Farren ends the story at the height of Hume's “political achievement and influence” when “the SDLP was basked in glory” (308). Yet the reader would be well served to have Farren's insights into the party's struggles of the past decade. The secondary literature on the SDLP is limited, which is one of the reasons this book is so important. Farren, nevertheless, does not refer to Gerard Murray's monograph, the only other history of the party. Despite minor problems, this is a welcome addition to the literature on the conflict. The significance of the SDLP is that it relied solely on the democratic process to advance social and political change in an era when violence was often used as a political tool and when Northern Ireland was under direct rule from the British government. This book ably describes the SDLP's important role in shaping Northern Ireland.
