Downey is a product of St Columb’s College, the Catholic grammar school whose past pupils include John Hume, Seamus Heaney and Brian Friel.
In furtherance of his goals, he continues to speak publicly, including a visit to Seton Hall University in New Jersey in 2005, the first Summer University of Democracy of the Council of Europe (Strasbourg, 10–14 July 2006), and St Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada 18 July 2007.
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In 2010 he was named "Ireland's Greatest" in a public poll by Irish national broadcaster RTÉ to find the greatest person in Ireland's history.
John F. Kennedy | Pope John Paul II | Elton John | John | John Lennon | John Wayne | John McCain | John Kerry | John Cage | Olivia Newton-John | John Williams | John Peel | John Adams | John Steinbeck | John Travolta | John Milton | John Zorn | John Marshall | John Howard | John Singer Sargent | John Ruskin | David Hume | John Updike | John Maynard Keynes | John Coltrane | John Cleese | St. John's | John Waters | John Lee Hooker | John Huston |
Some others were elected as Independent Nationalists outside of the above groupings, such as Timothy Harrington (1900) & (1906), Joseph Nolan (1900), D. D. Sheehan (1906), Laurence Ginnell (1910), William Redmond and James Cosgrave (1923), Michael O'Neill (1951), John Hume (1969), Paddy O'Hanlon (1969) and Ivan Cooper (1969).
Both were helped considerably by the initiative of John Hume, and the understanding built up between Reynolds, and British Prime Minister John Major.
The Northern Ireland State Papers of 1980 show that together with John Hume and Austin Currie he played a key role in presenting the SDLP'S 'Three Strands' approach to the Thatcher Government's Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins in April 1980 (Irish Times, 30 December 2010).
On 10 February she was married at Castle Ashby to John Hume Cust, viscount Alford, elder son of John Cust, first Earl Brownlow, and the heir to a portion of the large estates of Francis Egerton, third and last Duke of Bridgewater.