John Hume

Before the peace process, Hume's politics began in Derry: he co-founded the city's credit union in 1960, which grew into one of the largest in Ireland, and campaigned for a university in the city. As MP for Foyle from 1983 to 2005, and an MEP at the same time, he used his European and American contacts to argue for investment and jobs in the north-west, where unemployment was among the highest in the UK. In Derry he is remembered as much for the credit union as for the Nobel Prize.