A Northerner in the South

Being a 'Northerner' in the South has been an interesting and an enhancing experience and perhaps those of us who have moved from one area to the other have our own particu...

Michael Farrell - 2007

Challenges to social Values in a Changing Economy

Ireland today is in many ways unrecognisable from the Ireland of the fifties and sixties in which I grew up. The economic fatalism of the fifties, a decade in which about a third o...

Eithne Fitzgerald - 2004

Cultural Identity and Political Transformation

What it means to be Irish' has been one of the most insistent questions in public life over the last thirty years. It arises from the theory, shared widely among politicians, p...

Andrew Finlay - 2002

Excellence or Mediocrity? The future of second level education in Northern Ireland

If this was a simple choice there would be a brief discussion, excellence would be preferred, and the seminar would close before it began. Excellence means different things to diff...

Arthur Green 2002

Has Politics Failed?

Looked at in a broad sense, the answer to the first question has to be an emphatic “no”. In the Republic, politics has delivered a greater increase in material prosperi...

John Bruton - 2000

Have we lost the faith?

Clearly from the context, we're talking about religious faith, and so I need to make it clear at the outset that I am thinking broadly in terms of the Christian heritage in Ire...

The Most Reverend Richard Clarke - 2003

Imagining Ireland 2020

I thought I would use the opportunity to try out on you some ideas that are really very new and somewhat garbled ideas and hopefully in the process of doing that you can help me mo...

Dr Marie Breen Smyth

Ireland: A False Construct

My aim is to persuade you that the idea of Ireland as a self-sufficient entity is a false construct; that instead Ireland shares in the life of the whole British Isles; that contin...

Arthur Green - 1999

My Time with the Irish Association

I thought I would begin with a short account of when, where and how the Association was founded. The man mainly responsible was Major-General Hugh Montgomery of Blessingbourne, Co....

Barbara Fitzgerald - 2003

New Scriptures Needed

My title does not refer directly to the canonical texts of the Judaeo-Christian tradition - the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Scriptures, and the Rabbinical corpus. But they are on m...

Prof. Don Atkenson

Northern Ireland a place apart or a variation on a theme?

Ulster has always been somewhat apart from the rest of Ireland. The largest drumlin belt in Europe, around thirty miles wide, in earlier times was a formidable frontier: Estyn Evan...

Jonathan Bardon - 1999

Opportunities and Threats to North-South Co-Operation

Partition was in the end a concession to the principle that Ireland after empire could only flourish in separation.  A profound divide in the middle of an island was, for its ...

Prof Duncan Morrow - 2020

Poverty in Ireland - The Issues

The UN Human Development Report (2003) on Millennium Development Goals: A compact among nations to end human poverty identified Ireland as having the best economic performance in 1...

Helen Johnston - 2005

President’s Report 2022

Report presented by Stephen Douds at the AGM in Sandymount Hotel,  Dublin Jan 2023

Stephen Douds

Public Support for Political Violence and Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

Most of the research on paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland has concentrated on either the historical origins of paramilitary organisations or the background characteristics ...

Bernadette C. Hayes - 2003

Re-building war-torn societies: the Role of Non-Governmental Actors

My topic this evening is the role of the non-governmental actors in war-torn societies - a topic that is not only timely but also challenging. The diversity of NGOs varies greatly ...

Martti Ahtisaari - 2004

Religion and National Identity

Religion and national identity are one of those natural twins, a seemingly inescapable combination wherever you look in Irish history, St Patrick and Ireland, faith and fatherland....

Alan Ford - 1999

Religion and Violence: The Case of Paisley and Ulster Evangelicals

This essay uses the specific question of how far and in what ways, Ian Paisley has been responsible for the violence in Northern Ireland to consider the wider question of evangelic...

Steve Bruce - 2003

SDLP Economic Policy

With virtually full employment and labour shortages that can only be met by significant numbers of migrant workers, with manufacturing output and productivity increasing even with ...

Sean Farren - 2006

Southern Society Today

I came to Ireland forty-two years ago as a student, and began working for my living on The Irish Times four years later, in 1961. I was a writer working for the only newspaper that...

Bruce Arnold - 1999

Speech to the Irish Association

The Irish association has long been ahead of its time. For sixty years it has encouraged the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland to communicate. To celebrate what unites them, t...

Mr George Howarth MP - 2000

Speech to the Irish Association Spring Seminar

Nationalism is the leading political ideology of the late twentieth century, and has outstripped its main competitors (such as communism, fascism, nazism and racism) as the most co...

Tom Garvin - 2003

Sport, Politics and Community Relations in Northern Ireland

Since the early 1980s the relationship between sport and sectarian division in Northern Ireland has been subjected to considerable academic scrutiny. In addition, since the mid 199...

Alan Bairner - 2004

Sustainable Development - Ireland in 2020

While the Republic of Ireland has undoubtedly experienced a period of fifteen years of very rapid growth, Northern Ireland has also experienced a prolonged period of sustained grow...

John Fitzgerald - 2006

The Challenge of Policing Modern Ireland

While not here to debate political theories nor political ideals, I would rather like to share a few thoughts with you on a topic, I believe, both of us here today, are qualified t...

Address By Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy - 2004

The Church in Northern Ireland Today - The Test Of Change

It is often said that the Northern Ireland population is one of the most politically-aware groupings in western Europe. Certainly our history over the past 30 years bears ample tes...

Most Rev. Dr. Robin Eames - 2000

The Future of Northern Nationalism

I stand here as a nationalist. As a social democrat. As a supporter of the Good Friday Agreement. As a former Minister who believes deeply in the Agreement's Pledge of Office f...

Mark Durkan MLA - 2003

Towards an all-Ireland Economy: The business opportunities and political obstacles

I am very flattered to be invited to speak to this important meeting of the Irish Association. The Irish Association is an admirable society of individuals who have worked quietly ...

John Bradley - 2006