Oak planted in Derry’s St. Eugene’s Cathedral in memory of Pat Hume on peacemaker’s fifth anniversary
An oak sapling has been planted in St. Eugene’s Cathedral in memory of Pat Hume on the fifth anniversary of her death.
Pat’s daughters Áine and Thérèse were present, alongside other family members, with Bishop Dónal McKeown, Fr. Paul Farren. Mark Durkan and Mark H Durkan MLA, for the tree-planting.
In a poignant ceremony the sapling was carefully embedded in the earth on a grass banking that runs alongside the cathedral’s south eastern flank.
It was deliberately placed next to the ‘Tree of Peace’ – another young oak – which was set there in memory of Pat’s husband John on the second anniversary of his death four years ago.
Pat, a long-standing SDLP activist and campaigner for peace, passed away at the age of 83 on September 2, 2021.
Upon her death five years ago Fr. Paul Farren remembered her in his Funeral Homily as a ‘humble and beautiful person who always put others first’.
“Much has been said about John and Pat and their unity in peacemaking, and it’s all true. And if John brought the brilliant mind to the peacemaking, then Pat brought the pure heart,” he said.
Her role as a peacebuilder was acknowledged internationally.
Hilary Clinton, for example, had reflected: "Everybody else was talking about a divided society and the negativity of that. John and Pat were talking in a very positive way about the benefits of the fact we have a very diverse society.”
Former President Michael D. Higgins had observed how ‘the life of Pat Hume was one of total commitment to community, to the possibilities of peace, to the measures of non-violence that were necessary to assert, vindicate and achieve the results of civil rights’.
The Taoiseach Micheál Martin remarked that ‘Pat and John worked side by side for decades’ and described her as his ‘trusted adviser at key political moments and his anchor in their beloved Derry’.
And Colum Eastwood had said it was his view that ‘without Pat Hume, there would have been no peace process in Ireland, that’s the simple truth’.
"The compassion, integrity and immense fortitude that defined her incredible character breathed life into our peace over the course of a long campaign that, at times, must have looked like it would never bear fruit. She never gave up faith,” he said.