Editing Downing Street Declaration (section)

=== Hume-Adams Talks ===
The exercise of self-determination and the role of the British government had been a key component of the [[Hume–Adams dialogue|Hume-Adams]] talks in 1988. In the 26-page record of their inter-party dialogue the term 'self-determination' appeared no fewer than 54 times.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McBride |first=Ian |date=2023 |title=The Making of the Downing Street Declaration |url=https://www.quillproject.net/m2/static//img/features/downing_street_declaration/McBride_Making_of_the_Joint_Declaration.pdf |access-date=12 December 2023 |website=Writing Peace: The Quill Project, Pembroke College (Oxford, 2023)}}</ref> While Sinn Fein attributed the essence of the Irish problem to Britain's 'colonial interference', Hume argued that the British no longer had selfish interest in maintaining their presence in Ireland, and that the focus should instead be on resolving the divisions within Ireland itself over how self-determination was exercised, by persuading and obtaining the consent of the Unionist population for a unified Ireland, something the Sinn Féin delegation described as a 'Unionist veto'.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sinn Féin |first=SDLP |date=1988 |title=The Sinn Fein/SDLP Talks |url=https://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/15215 |access-date=12 December 2023 |website=Sinn Fein}}</ref> Hume's proposed solution that would enable a divided Ireland to exercise collective self-determination was dual referendums in both the North and the South, a concept that would feature not only in the Downing Street Declaration, but later in the [[Good Friday Agreement]]. These early ideas and discussions were refined through Reid's dialogue with [[Martin Mansergh]] whose commentary on Reid's proposals represents one of the earliest attempts to reconcile the 'inalienable right' of the Irish people to 'the exercise in common of self-determination without external intervention' with the practical need to seek the consent of 'both parts of Ireland'.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich Archive |first=OFCA74056 |date=1989 |title=Discussion Paper Outlining Principles for a Solution and Proposals for a Peace Forum |url=https://www.quillproject.net/resource_collections/352/resource_item/23588 |access-date=12 December 2023 |website=Writing Peace: Tomás Ó Fiaich, Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2023)}}</ref>