Tributes are being paid to John Hume who has died at the age of 83.
Hume died this morning at a nursing home in his native Derry after a short illness and will be laid to rest in Derry on Wednesday.
The President Micheal D Higgins said he remodelled politics in Ireland, while Taoiseach Micheal Martin says the Good Friday Agreement wouldn’t have been achieved without him.
In 1998 his work was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize, which he shared with David Trimble, and he was once described by former US President Bill Clinton as “the Martin Luther King of Northern Ireland”
Throughout his political career he had an abhorrance of violence, and took part in secret talks with Gerry Adams in the 90s to end the Troubles.
Former prime minister Tony Blair, who was in office when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, described John Hume as “a political titan; a visionary who refused to believe the future had to be the same as the past”.
“It was John Hume, probably more than anyone else, who sat me down and said, ‘look, I know you’re a new prime minister and I know a lot of people will be telling you this is impossible but I’m telling you, it can be done’,” Mr Blair said.
