A life lived in defiance of toxic hatreds: Seamus Mallon, 1936-2020

Seamus Mallon, who will be buried in his beloved Markethill in South Armagh today, may not quite be numbered in that trinity of the greatest Irishmen of modern times — O’Connell, Parnell, and Hume — but it is certain that John Hume would not have reached that status, nor sustained it, without theenduring support and friendship of Mallon.

They enjoyed a long, fruitful if occasionally fraught relationship. One concentrated on securing international support for their cause while the other — Mallon — concentrated on Belfast and Lon don, Dublin too.