Bungled IRA attempt to kidnap schoolgirl daughter of John Hume revealed in new book

Stephen Walker’s work ‘John Hume: The Persuader’ will be published by Gill Books on October 12.

Among many other stories of Hume’s life it contains details of the time the IRA abducted a schoolgirl, falsely believing her to be his daughter Aine.

According to the book – a portion of which appeared in the Irish Times at the weekend – she attended St Anne’s Primary School in the Rosemount area of Londonderry, and “the IRA decided at one stage to kidnap her”.

The book then says: “On the day in question, the kidnappers arrived at the school and spotted their target as she left the premises.

"She was bundled quickly into a car and driven towards the Border. Her captors may have thought the operation had gone well until they realised they had snatched the wrong child.

"They had, in fact, picked up a girl who closely resembled Áine.

"It was a case of mistaken identity, and the girl was released unharmed, as Áine recalled: ‘They let her go once they looked at her schoolbooks. And I am just hugely grateful that it wasn’t me.’”

It also records other hostility from republicans towards her family, with Aine saying: “I remember bargaining a lot with God. Which is crazy, you know. Because I used to worry about Dad getting killed.

"So I remember saying, ‘Please can it be sudden, and please can it be that he does not have to suffer’. And trying to make it as untraumatic as possible, you know.”

In 2020 a former IRA convict told the News Letter that in the early 1980s in prison, his comrades “were advocating that we should shoot him” (Hume).

This was never carried out “because it was a strategically bad thing, not because it was morally wrong – that’s not how we thought in those days“.

Just a few months ago former deputy first minister Mark Durkan had voiced his concerns about republican re-writing of the past to the News Letter, particularly Sinn Fein’s antagonism towards the SDLP over the Good Friday Agreement, a treaty which Sinn Fein likes to closely associate itself with today.

“I remember a time post-agreement when the SDLP still would've been getting a lot of criticism from people in Sinn Fein, with accusations that the agreement wasn't what it should be, and the SDLP had bottled it, et cetera,” he said.

"There's an observation that irony in politics is often just hypocrisy with panache.

"And when we see so many different people now claiming not just affinity with the Good Friday Agreement but authorship of it, I'm reminded of that.”

He also recalled that Sinn Fein members had opposed the Patten Reforms to the RUC, "making that opposition felt in various council chambers, because of course decisions had to be made about setting up local DIstrict Policing Partnerships".

He added that "it was the case that several Sinn Fein councillors were quite graphic in the terms in which they stated their opposition to these moves and their caution, not just to SDLP members, but to any possible members of the public who might consider taking up positions as independents on those policing partnerships".