The Irish Embassy in London has unveiled a bust of the late John Hume, one of four memorials to the Nobel Peace Prize winner.
The others will be installed in Washington, Brussels and Dublin.
The bronze portrait bust, by Dublin-based sculptor Elizabeth O'Kane, was unveiled by Hume’s son, John Hume Jr, at an event attended by MPs, Lords, members of the Hume family and representatives from the John and Pat Hume Foundation.
Ireland's Embassy in London has been - and remains - a key location in Anglo-Irish relations. It was also a key location for Hume's political project that led ultimately to the Good Friday Agreement.
The Department of Foreign Affairs paid tribute to that work over the decades, with Ambassador Adrian O'Neill unveiling the bust.
Ms O'Kane who worked closely with John Hume Jr and other members of the Hume family in researching the work.
"I worked a lot with John Hume Jr, and he suggested sculpting his father in his early 40s - around the time he was first elected to the European Parliament," she said, explaining the depiction of a man with a long running public life.
She explained one small detail on the left lapel of the bust.
"I asked if his dad had any special tie or clothes that he would have often worn, and the Hume family told me he always wore the pin of an Officer of the Legion D'Honneur (the highest order of merit of the French Republic).
"The late Pat Hume asked for John to be depicted without his glasses, but she did ask if his hair could be nicely combed!".
So what did the family think of the finished piece. John Hume Jr, who performed the unveiling with the artist, said she "absolutely got it".
"I was completely taken aback by it. It's really the expression of his face. It’s him. Really, Liz O'Kane has done an amazing job, she has really captured him," he said.
He is looking forward to the rest of the Hume family seeing the bust – either here in London, or in Iveagh House Dublin, the Irish Embassy in Washington or possibly in the European Parliament in Brussels.
"We're just so grateful as a family to the Department of Foreign Affairs for doing this to honour Dad in this way.
"I think that throughout his throughout his life, throughout his career, the Department of Foreign Affairs was such a help to him, whether it's here in London or in Brussels or in Washington DC."
Also present at the unveiling was the current SDLP leader Colum Eastwood, who is also the MP for Foyle, Hume’s old Westminster seat.
He said: "It’s really important the Department of Foreign Affairs has done this because John's relationship with the DFA was able to produce the pressure in London, Washington and Brussels to produce what became the Good Friday Agreement.
"That work was done hand-in-hand with the DFA and was so important in the peace process, so I think it’s so fitting. John's likeness is being displayed across the world by the Irish Government."
The room in London where it is displayed – the Ambassador’s salon, a frequent venue for the daily work of developing Anglo-Irish relations – also contains a table once owned by another former member of the Westminster parliament, Daniel O'Connell.
The Hume busts now stands opposite that table, a permanent presence in a room used to shape relations between these two islands, adding to the sense of a place where history is made.
Mr Eastwood thought it entirely fitting, quoting another leading light of the SDLP.
"Seamus Mallon said that John stood in great company with O'Connell and Parnell, and I think he did – he was a great parliamentarian, a democrat, a civil rights leader – someone who brought about great change on our island by peaceful and democratic means, and that is very easy company for John Hume to stand in."
Ms O'Kane, who works in Dublin's Grand Canal Dock area, said she was honoured to get this commission.
She said: "I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles and looked up to John Hume my entire life. So I couldn't have had a bigger honour than sculpting him.
"And I've sculpted Garrett Fitzgerald and John McCormick and lots of important figures - but for me, John Hume was a really personal one, a really special privilege."
Ambassador O'Neill said: "John Hume is rightly remembered and honoured as a key architect of the peace process.
"His achievements as a peacemaker were uniquely honoured by being the only person in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize and the Martin Luther King Award.
"In a nationwide poll in 2010, he was voted the greatest Irish person in history, a recognition of the gratitude, respect and affection for him across the island of Ireland – a feeling we rightly honour today with the installation of his bust in the Irish Embassy in London."
John Hume died on 3 August 2020. His widow Pat died last September.
