Army could recruit 50,000 men in North,said Hume

FORMER SDLP leader John Hume telephoned Dublin to suggest the mass recruitment of northern nationalists into the Irish army in the hours following Bloody Sunday, files released to the National Archives today show.

Mr Hume told an Irish Government official the Republic could "easily recruit 50,000 men from the North for the Army" but was asked not to discuss the matter further on the phone.

With a note of desperation, he also warned the official, with whom he had been in touch "all evening" after the shootings, that he and his colleagues were "at the end of their political resources".