I shattered John Hume’s image when I confronted him about his attitude to Protestants

And yet his Anglo-Irish-Agreement made talks between Northern Ireland parties impossible for a further 12 years. The murder rate rose sharply in the following years.

Hume’s border policy also was the same as Sinn Fein’s. I proved this in 1994. I was on Pat Kenny radio show (by phone) and asked Hume ‘Do you give equal respect to both the claims to self determination on this island?’

He squirmed for two minutes but refused to say ‘Yes’, his plodding antipathy to Protestants being so deep.

But I had only half-proved my theory. I fully proved it four weeks later in the Berkeley Court Hotel.

I surprised him there by asking exactly the same question in front of 400 people.

He wandered for two long minutes then (unwisely), tried his usual insult of ‘Some of them would be struck dumb if the word No were removed from their vocabulary!’

As the Dublin crowd began to roar with tribal delight, I heard myself shout the following forbidden words: ‘Well, why don’t You say “Yes” for a change then — to their right to self-determination?’

‘No!’ he roared, ‘No! They don’t have that right!’

The crowd was shocked — I had smashed his image just as Miriam O’Callaghan smashed Martin McGuinness’s during the 2011 Irish presidential election debate (‘Martin’ went ape later in the refreshment room).

This confession of Hume’s was discussed in the Observer, I was invited to describe the event in Committee Room 10 at the House of Commons and even on BBC Ulster.

Hume thereafter knew me by sight at UK Labor Party conferences and showed signs there of ‘antipathy’.

Matt O’Dowd, Dublin 8

• Ben Lowry: Hume’s rejection of violence will play key role in shaping history

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