Seamus Mallon

As one of Northern Ireland's most prominent nationalist politicians, Seamus Mallon has always sought the genuine reconciliation of conflicting traditions using only peaceful means. This is his personal testament. In A Shared Home Place, Mallon evokes his happy childhood in the Protestant heartland of Markethill, south Armagh, and dwells on the turbulent years of constitutional politics in the maelstrom of near-civil war during the 1970s and 1980s. He was the target of both loyalist violence and republican vilification, and his harrowing depictions of tit-for-tat brutality in Northern Ireland's most bloody region outside Belfast bear poignant witness to the tragedy of hatred between neighbours. Mallon complemented John Hume in laying the foundations of the peace process and gives fascinating insights into what took place behind the scenes of negotiation that led to the Good Friday Agreement. Now in his eighty-third year, Mallon reflects upon this hard-won deal with the Ulster Unionists and calls for a new beginning - a shared home place in which Irish unity can only be achieved through parallel consent. This timely memoir encompasses the social and political history of Northern Ireland, and offers hope for its future.

Seamus Mallon, from Markethill in County Armagh (where he still lives), was Deputy Leader of the SDLP from 1979 to 2001 and party spokesman on policing and justice. He was Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001, MP for Newry and Armagh from 1986 to 2005, and a member of Seanad Éireann in 1982. He was the SDLP's chief negotiator in the talks that led to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He also framed legislation in the Westminster parliament that pushed for full implementation of the Patten Commission's recommendations on police reform in the North - one of the major success stories of the peace process.