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PEACEMAKERS — Monica
McWilliams (center) and Thomas Moran (right)
speak to Mount
Mary College students about their work for peace
and justice in Ireland on Friday, May 21. The
two received honorary degrees at Mount Mary’s
graduation ceremony on May 22. (submitted photo)
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MILWAUKEE — University professor and former Irish
assemblywoman Monica McWilliams spoke to a gathering
of Mount Mary College students, community leaders, and
members of Milwaukee’s Irish community on Friday,
May 21, about her role in the Irish peace process.
McWilliams and Thomas Moran, president and CEO of Mutual
of America and a longtime economic advisor to the Irish
government, were in Milwaukee to receive honorary degrees
at Mount Mary College’s commencement ceremony on
Saturday, May 22.
McWilliams told of growing up on a farm in a small village
in Northern Ireland.
“There were two of everything, for Catholics and
Protestants. (But) I didn’t meet anyone of a different
religion until I went to college. I couldn’t get
enough of Protestant boyfriends. I wanted to find out
if they
were different,” she laughed.
McWilliams, a longtime activist, participated in the
civil rights and women’s rights movements in the
1960s and 1970s. She became involved in the Irish peace
process in 1996, helping to co-found the Northern Ireland
Women’s Coalition.
“We gathered up all the women, bused them in from
rural areas,” McWilliams said. “We said, ‘There
are going to be peace talks in this country — should
we do it ourselves?’ It was a huge risk to move
into the political arena. We knew there would be lots
of risks to us, that funding would be closed to us.”
McWilliams was a signatory to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement,
which was signed by the British and Irish governments
and provided for a new Northern Ireland democracy and
the establishment of a Northern Ireland assembly with “devolved” legislative
powers (transferred to a coalition of the main parties).
The news of the victory was met with caution even by
her own family.
“I went home and said, ‘We’ve negotiated
a peace agreement,’” McWilliams said. Her
youngest child wearily replied, ‘Oh, Mommy, you’ve
been saying that for years.’”
“We need to give our children a future where violence
is unacceptable,” McWilliams said. All parties
involved in the Good Friday Agreement agreed to commit
to “exclusively peaceful and democratic means.”
Moran credited his involvement in Irish politics to Bill
Flynn, a work colleague, who asked Moran to support his
efforts for Ireland. Flynn was visited by a group known
as Northern Aid, but found that he didn’t agree
with their approach. The group’s leader challenged
Flynn to “tell us what you’re doing, and
maybe we can join you” — motivating Flynn
to get to work himself, as well as involve others.
Moran said “parity of esteem” was one of
the peace process’s fundamentals.
“If you feel British or Irish, that must be respected,” Moran
said. “The right to feel Irish is equal to the
right to feel British.” He added the “principle
of consent” also must be involved.
“Despite a sense of Irishness, this should still
be a united Ireland,” Moran said. “(Things)
can change only if a majority of opinion says it should
be
changed.
“It sounds so simple. We (Americans) think everything’s
a vote, everything is democratic. But this is one of
the most loaded issues in the peace process,” requiring
a constitutional amendment.
Moran said the peace process constituted a “dramatic
shift” in Irish politics because “this war
was fought with politics instead of bullets.” He
spoke of having attended a Sinn Fein convention where
a South African woman who had been part of the African
National Congress spoke. (Sinn Fein is an Irish Republican
party seeking to end British rule in Ireland. It works
for national self-determination and the unity and independence
of Ireland as a sovereign state.)
The African woman said initially she had been against
putting down weapons, but told the assembly that “I
was wrong,” Moran said. “That changed the
whole tone of the convention.”
“There’s still a lot of effort needed ...
but the issues are being addressed with words, not guns.
Debates
are being handled in respectful, not violent, ways,” Moran
said. “Someday this will be a model of conflict
resolution.”
