During her political awakening in the early 1970s, Bríd Rodgers wrote to John Hume asking what he was doing about widespread discrimination against Catholics in Lurgan, Co Armagh.
The response was short and to the point: “Dear Bríd, what are YOU doing about it?”
It was the beginning of a relationship that would soon after lead to the establishment of the SDLP and an association which prevails to this day.
As she prepares to celebrate her 90th birthday, the Donegal-born mother-of-six retains a keen interest in politics.
Now residing in Howth, Co Dublin, her focus is as much on the Republic but she keeps informed of matters north of the border, primarily through the pages of The Irish News.
A former member of the Seanad and minister for agriculture and rural development, Mrs Rodgers was a member of the SDLP team that helped negotiate the Good Friday Agreement.
While Northern Ireland society has transformed since the days when she first became involved in politics, her ideology is still informed by the same principles.
“I came to live in the north in 1960 as a complete greenhorn. I was shocked to find I was a second class citizen, who didn’t have full access to housing and jobs, and there was also widespread gerrymandering, yet there were no implements for change,” she recalls.
“Then John Hume came on the scene and he was talking a different language about how there were two conflicting identities in the north but one was in total power.”
Hume’s ideas about the accommodation of the two identities resonated with Mrs Rodgers, and still do.
She argues that the SDLP’s stance – which saw it pilloried by republicans as the ‘stoop down low party’ – has been “vindicated”.
“I now realise that all political graft and the work that was done, particularly by John Hume with the British, with America, Seamus (Mallon) working in Westminster, it actually brought about more change than we thought it could,” she says.
“I never really thought I would see the situation where unionism was no longer in a majority. They misled their own people and always opposed any change. I think it’s their own fault that they could not bring themselves to move into a different space and to recognise the need for people to work together.”
But while the unionist majority may have gone, the former SDLP deputy leader says the sectarianism that characterised the first 100 years of Northern Ireland’s history is still evident,
“Life has changed so much in the north, and yet has it?” she says.
“The sectarianism is still there. It’s still being encouraged, certainly by some of the parties, especially the DUP, but I think the old idea of trying to frighten people about what’s going to happen is losing out and there’s a younger generation now on both sides who recognise that that was all a bit futile.”
Mrs Rodgers believes republican violence reinforced unionist intransigence.
“I hated the whole idea of violence – it never solved anything,” she says.
“That’s why I got involved in civil rights, because I realised that civil rights would be a tough slog, making your point and putting pressure on a government who actually had the power to change things was the only way forward.”
Likewise, she argues that the same violence set back the prospect of Irish unity.
“I am absolutely certain that the IRA campaign did more damage to the cause of Irish unity than anything the loyalists could have done,” she says.
“It actually strengthened division. It strengthened the sectarianism. It strengthened the fear on both sides.”
The former Upper Bann MLA always aspired to a united Ireland but argues that it needs to be preceded by reconciliation.
“I would dearly like to see Irish unity but I realised it was never going to happen unless things changed and unless some kind of normality was brought about within the north and even between the north and the south,” she says.
“One of the first pamphlets published by John Hume was about an agreed Ireland – it’s about both traditions, because if those two traditions can’t be brought together in agreement, there’s not going to be unity.”
Part of the first post-Good Friday Agreement Stormont executive, Mrs Rodgers served as agriculture minister for almost three years until the institutions were suspended in October 2002.
She believes that during her time in office, which included overseeing the regional administration’s response to the foot and mouth outbreak, the former minister won the confidence of the traditionally unionist and conservative farming lobby.
“We were beginning to do what John Hume always said, working the common ground together and recognising that our interests outweigh our differences – I could actually see that happening, and then the whole thing fell apart.”
Following the institutions' collapse, the fortunes of the SDLP and Ulster Unionists waned.
Mrs Rodgers argues that delays in IRA decommissioning fuelled instability and increased support for the DUP, while giving Sinn Féin greater media airtime. She also concedes that the SDLP failed to plan for the post-agreement, post-Hume era.
The subsequent St Andrews Agreement, she says, created “two silos”.
“Instead of the whole assembly working together and all supporting both ministers, we were back to a situation where you support your lot and we support our lot, and that was the beginning of the rot, I believe,” she says.
Reflecting on her political career, she remains unwavering in many of her beliefs, however, she concedes her attitude to social and moral issues has changed, such as moving to a pro-choice stance on abortion and accepting same sex relationships.
“If you can’t change yourself, you’ll change nothing else,” Mrs Rodgers says.