The Meath Peace Group Website

There is an update on the Meath Peace Groups activities over this year to be found here


Meath Peace Group Spring Seminar, Saturday 25 April 2009: "Dealing with the past and healing on these islands"

Over 70 people from north and south attended the Meath Peace Group all-day seminar held in St Columban's College Dalgan Park on the occasion of the 16th anniversary of the founding of the group. The seminar, which was opened by Cllr Liz McCormack, Cathaoirleach of Meath County Council, was composed of 3 sessions:

I - 'Dealing with the past and healing on these islands'. Speakers: Rev. Harold Good, Brian Feeney and Seymour Crawford TD; chaired by Michael Reade (report of this session now available in our archives section)

II - 'Peacebuilding in practice'. Presentations from: the Cookstown Inter-Church Forum (David Murray), the Cavan Family Resource Centre - Supporting Minorities in the Border Region project (Cllr Martin Kenny, Walter Pringle and Marcus Hopkins), the HURT victims group (Gareth Porter) and the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund (David Costello). The session was chaired by Roy Garland. (report in progress)

III - 'Empowering young people'. Presentations from Rob Farmichael (INNATE), Billy Tate (Belvoir Park Primary School), Sean O Baoill (facilitator with MNI and Meath Peace Group schools programme), Anne Molloy (Amnesty Ireland), Michael O'Sullivan (St Columban's justice and peace office), Vincent Donovan (and students from St Joseph's secondary school, Navan), Jackie McArthur (Belfast) and Joe Murray (AfrI). Chaired by Ronnie Hassard (Principal, Ballymena Academy) (report in progress)

Full reports on all sessions of the seminar will be made available as soon as possible. The report on session I is now available in the archives section

We would like to thank all those who took part in the seminar - speakers, guest chairs and seminar participants - many of whom travelled long distances, and all who helped with the organisation, recording and refreshments. Special thanks to St Columban's College for facilitating the seminar and to the Department of Foreign Affairs for financial support.

Welcome to the website of the Meath Peace Group, a voluntary group founded in 1993 in Co. Meath with the aims of promoting peace, and the fostering of understanding, mutual respect, reconciliation and trust, through dialogue between people North and South

We hope to regularly update the site and keep you informed of upcoming events.

Among other items, you will find edited transcripts of many of the public talks we have held in County Meath since the group was first founded in April 1993.

The series of talks (67 to date) were initially begun as an education process for ourselves. In 1993, after years of bitter conflict and pain, in the face of which many of us in the South felt so helpless and yet also felt responsible, we wanted to learn about the issues that divided people on the island and to hear first hand and engage with the experiences, viewpoints, beliefs and aspirations of people from diverse backgrounds and traditions. There was never any organised plan, each talk led to another, and the experiences and insights learned in turn led us into many other activities (including monitoring disputed parades, running school programmes, researching and presenting submissions etc).

Over the years our talks have covered practically every aspect of the conflict as well as highlighting and examining the ups and downs of the emerging peace process. From early on we recognised the value of recording and documenting the talks although this was not possible on every occasion. We hope that the reports we publish here will help to promote understanding and hopefully encourage others to play their part in building peace.

Acknowledgments: We are indebted to the many speakers who have come to Co. Meath to address our public talks some of whom have also taken part in our school programmes in Meath and Louth. We are indebted also to the many guest chairs who have presided over the discussions, and who themselves contributed to the dialogue, and above all we thank the ordinary people of Co. Meath and the neigbouring counties, and also from all over Northern Ireland, who have come to listen and take part in the discussions, often staying late into the night and continuing the debate over a cup of tea afterwards.

Finally we thank all those who have assisted in the running of the talks, particularly our own committee members. We gratefully acknowledge the much-needed financial assistance we have received from the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund and the hospitality of St Columban's College, Dalgan Park Navan, where most of the public talks were held.