CONTACT: MELVIN O. SHAW
100 Old Public Library
Iowa City IA 52242
(319) 384-0010; fax (319) 384-0024
e-mail: melvin-shaw@uiowa.edu

Release: April 25, 2000

1998 Nobel Prize winner John Hume at UI for talk April 28

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- John Hume, co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize, will present a public lecture at the University of Iowa at 4 p.m., Friday, April 28 at Macbride Hall Auditorium.

Hume helped broker a peace agreement between Northern Ireland's Protestants and Catholics in April 1998, which has since led to a first-ever multi-party British and Irish government.

Hume's talk, "The Struggle for Peace in Northern Ireland," is a part of the UI College of Law's continuing series of Richard S. Levitt Distinguished Lectures. Hume is to be introduced at the free and public talk by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, (D-Ia.), a longtime friend of Hume, and also an instrumental figure in arranging his visit to Iowa City.

Hume was scheduled to present this Levitt Lecture in spring 1998 as part of the then year-long human rights awareness program Global Focus: Human Rights '98. Hume's visit was cancelled, when he was summoned to return to Northern Ireland to help resolve a crisis in implementing the Good Friday Peace Agreement, the 1998 peace accord he helped negotiate.

Hume shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize award with David Trimble, leader of the Ulster Unionists since 1995, who was also a major architect of their country's peace process. Hume has led Northern Ireland's main Catholic party, the Social Democratic and Labor Party since 1979. He has been an outspoken champion of non-violent solutions to the vexing political, social, and religious issues that have divided Northern Ireland for a number of decades.