. -- democratic and labour party, john hume who provided the intellectual analysis and framework that enabled negotiations to take place in northern ireland from 1996-1998 that produced the good friday agreement. and of course, he received the nobel prize for his efforts, along with the unionist leader. david. george mitchell of course was very important in the success of those negotiations. now, american involvement in these years in relation to northern ireland really can be attributed at the political level to the efforts of this -- of john hume who as early as 1970's, he came to america as often as he could to lobby ted kennedy and o'neill to get them to use their influence so that irish americans would not give money to power military groups and would back up the use of dialogue and negotiations as a way forward. and as i have indicated, it was this approach that finally brought an end to the devastation in northern ireland that had taken the lives of 3000 people and created severe injuries for about 36,000 others. thomas o'neill got his other colleagues to help them. senator ken

american involvement in these years in northern ireland really can be attributed to the efforts of john hume, who as early as the 1970's, came to america to lobby people like ted kennedy, to get them to use their influence so that irish-americans would not give money to paramilitary groups and would backup the use of dialogue and negotiations as a way forward. as i've indicated, it was this approach that finally brought an end to the devastation in northern ireland that had taken the lives of 3600 people and created severe injuries for about 36,000 others. tip o'neill got some of his other colleagues in congress to help him. senator kenny, senator moynahan, and the governor of new york. these were known as the four horsemen. they put a lot of pressure on the white house over the years, particularly on ronald reagan, to have him pressure miss thatcher to give up her hostile approach to northern ireland. it was one that said they are all rebels, all troublemakers, let the police and army deal with it. eventually, she had to change that. they were also successful in getting president carter to