Roisin McLaughlin, University of Ulster, to lecture on building peace in Northern Ireland

Update: The event below has been canceled due to the speaker's illness.

Roisin McLaughlin, University of Ulster, to lecture on building peace in Northern Ireland

Roisin (pronounced Rosheen) McLaughlin from the UNESCO Centre of the School of Education, University of Ulster-Coleraine campus, Northern Ireland, will deliver a lecture on “Building Peace and Good Relations in Post-Agreement Northern Ireland: The State We’re In.”

This event will be held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., with receptoin following, on Tuesday, Sept. 19, in Room 126, John R. Roach Center for the Liberal Arts. A reception will follow the lecture.

McLaughlin, former director of the Democracy and Social Change Program for HECUA (Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs) will discuss the significant changes that Northern Ireland has experienced in the period since the signing of the Good Friday-Belfast Agreement in 1998, which effectively ended the 30-plus-year civil war. This peace agreement came about largely as a result of warming relations and greater cooperation between the British and Irish governments with regard to the Northern Irish question. The electorate in Northern Ireland signaled its support for peace in the referendum that preceded the signing of the agreement. 

McLaughlin’s lecture will examine the sociopolitical changes that have occurred since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement and will take stock of where Northern Ireland is in the pursuit of building good intercommunal relations and a positive peace. Key aspects that will be addressed include: the architecture of the Good Friday Agreement and devolved government, the current influence of paramilitary groups, and the work undertaken by civil society groups designed to build bridges between the two main communities in Northern Ireland.

This event is co-sponsored by the departments of Political Science, International Studies, Justice and Peace Studies, and Irish Studies.