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People who helped build the Good Friday Agreement will join representatives of the next generation of citizens at the 12th Annual Thomas D'Arcy McGee Summer School in Carlingford this month.
Entitled ‘The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement 25 years on ... Towards the Next Twenty-five!’ the event takes place over two days on August 15 and 16, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Carlingford bringing together an exciting lineup of personalities, speakers and participants. This year's event marks the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement with a firm focus on the future. The Summer School will provide a forum to share the perspectives, reflections, aspirations, hopes and fears of a number of the builders of the GFA. They will be joined by some of the new generation thought-leaders and influencers, as we all continue to wrestle with the legacy of divided traditions, contested cultures and opposing identities ... all set against the backdrop of some of the major global ‘tsunami’ issues likely to affect life on this island over the next twenty-five years, whatever our constitutional dilemmas.
The 2023 Summer School will be launched by Neale Richmond, Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment with special responsibility for Employment Affairs and Retail Business and the Department of Social Protection.
Keynote speakers, as well as panellists and participants from the floor, will draw on this legacy to combine historical analysis with contemporary insights to understand better our shared interests as we look towards consolidating peace and building a better life for all.
The thinking of Carlingford-born D’Arcy McGee, a former physical force Irish republican turned Canadian confederalist (and unionist), who died because of his commitment to building a pluralist, multi-ethnic-cultural society based on mutual respect, intelligent self-interest and rule of law, still shines a light on the principles and values that underpin the Agreement.
Over the years, the Thomas D'Arcy McGee Summer School has served as a lively platform for fostering dialogue and better understanding across the island of Ireland. The seminar, in the spirit of McGee, has always addressed significant contemporary themes in ways that respect differences and differences of opinion, that transcend old political divisions and seek to create common ground for dialogue. Our 2023 edition continues in that tradition.
The day and a half summer-school brings together leaders and commentators from different sectors along with citizens and civil society, including from the GFA generation. The Summer School will draw on D’Arcy McGee’s pluralist perspective to see more clearly the crossing points of shared interest and the opportunity for building/strengthening the bridges between communities and generations as we look into the next quarter century of the GFA/Belfast Agreement. The gathering will be used to address some of the pivotal challenges which, irrespective of our backgrounds and traditions, will inevitably affect us all ... climate change, a new world economic disorder, disrupting technology, artificial intelligence, to mention but a few.
The Speakers
Day One
Professor David Wilson, from St Michael’s College, Toronto University, historian and specialist in Irish revolutionary and conservative movements in America, including D’Arcy McGee.
Bronagh Hinds, civil rights veteran, women's rights activist and member of the Women’s Coalition at the negotiations leading to the GFA.
Danny Kennedy, former Chair of the Ulster Unionist Party, and former member of the Northern Ireland Executive.
Linda and Brian Irvine have been actively promoting cultural diversity and inclusivity in East Belfast through their project Turas.
James Donaldson and Roberta Heaney of the Schomberg Society in Kilkeel who have done much to promote better understanding of the Ulster Scots culture and tradition.
V’cenza Cirefice is an ecofeminist researcher and activist from Mourne, who explores environmental justice through a feminist lens. Tom McDonnell is co-director of the Nevin Economic Research Institute (ICTU) and has been working on building a model for economic resilience to the vagaries of a globalised world and fit for the challenges of climate change across the island of Ireland.
Róisín Loughran is the Manager of the Regulated Software Research Centre with special interest in the ethical application of Artificial Intelligence.
Day Two
Emma de Souza, journalist and writer on contemporary politics who fought a legal battle to uphold her rights under the GFA as an Irish citizen born in Northern Ireland.
Joel Keys who describes himself as ‘a young person who is interested in politics and comes from the PUL (Protestant, Unionist and Loyalist) community’ and who has addressed the NI Parliamentary Committee at Westminster on loyalist opposition to the ‘Protocol’.
Oein DeBhairduin is an Irish Traveller activist, educator, administrator, and writer. He is the co-founder of LGBT Tara (Traveller and Roma Alliance).
Yaser Alashqar is an adjunct assistant professor in the International Peace Studies MPhil programme at Trinity College (the University of Dublin) School of Ecumenics, specialising in civil society role at the national and political level, mediation processes, peacebuilding, comparative politics Northern Ireland and Palestine.
Cameron Lynch – Member of Donegal Youth Council and youth rights activist.
For more information about the Summer School and its program, please visit https://www.eventbrite.ie
