Speakers & Moderators
Dr Ian d’Alton Dr Ian d’Alton is an historian of the culture, politics and society of southern Irish Protestantism. Author of Protestant society and politics in Cork, 1812-1844 (Cork UP, 1980), he has recently published essays and delivered papers on such as the Church of Ireland’s reaction to the dogma of the Assumption in 1950; the illumination of the southern Protestant psyche by the writers Elizabeth Bowen and Lennox Robinson; and perspectives on how Protestants in the twentieth century survived. His 1972 RHS Alexander Prize essay on Cork unionism, 1885-1914, was recently republished in Fleming & O’Day (eds) Ireland and Anglo-Irish Relations since 1800: Critical Essays, Volume II (Ashgate, 2008). Dr d’Alton has contributed the entries on Iris Murdoch, Elizabeth Bowen, Molly Keane, Lord Barrymore, Sir Thomas Lipton and Oliver MacDonagh to the forthcoming Dictionary of Irish Biography (RIA & Cambridge UP, November 2009). He is chief executive of an Irish state-owned company, Housing Finance Agency plc.
Dr Robert Armstrong Robert Armstrong is Senior Lecturer in History and Fellow of Trinity College Dublin. He is the author of Protestant war: the British of Ireland and the wars of the three kingdoms (2005) and is currently researching both peace-making and Presbyterianism in seventeenth- century Ireland.
Dr Kevin Bean Dr. Kevin Bean is a lecturer in Irish Politics at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool. His main research interests are contemporary Northern Irish politics, Irish Republicanism and state responses to armed insurgency. His recent publications include ‘Defining Republicanism: Shifting Discourses of New Nationalism and Post-Republicanism’ in M. Elliott (ed), The Long Road to Peace in Northern Ireland, 2007, The New Politics of Sinn Féin 2007 and ‘“The Economic and Social War Against Violence” British Social and Economic Strategy and the Evolution of Provisionalism’ in A. Edwards ad S.Bloomer (eds), Transforming the Peace Process in Northern Ireland: from Terrorism to Democratic Politics, 2008.
Mr Vincent Browne Vincent Browne is a columnist with the Irish Times and the Sunday Business Post and he presents a nightly current affairs TV programme on TV3.
Dr Anthony D Buckley Dr Anthony D Buckley has published, on Northern Ireland, A Gentle People, Symbols in Northern Ireland and (with Mary Catherine Kenney) Negotiating Identity. His PhD thesis, published as Yoruba Medicine, won the Amaury Talbot Prize for African Anthropology. As a curator at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, he has published on ethnicity, religion, folk-medicine, Freemasonry, the Orange Order, friendly societies, folk-drama and latterly sport. Now retired, he has an honorary Senior Research Fellowship in Anthropology at the Queen's University of Belfast.
Professor John Coakley John Coakley is currently head of the School of Politics and International Relations at UCD. His research interests include the comparative study of ethnic conflict and the politics of Ireland, North and South.
Professor Mary Daly Professor Daly is currently College Principal of the College of Arts and Celtic Studies. University College Dublin 1969 B.A. History and Economics; 1971 M.A.History. 1971-NUI Travelling Studentship to Nuffield College Oxford. 1970-71 Temporary assistant lecturer UCD; 1973-80 Assistant Lecturer UCD; 1980-87 College Lecturer; 1987-92 Statutory Lecturer; 1988-90 visiting Scholar Center for European Studies Harvard. 1992-2006 Associate Professor; 2006 Professor. 1991 Elected to the Royal Irish Academy; 1996-2004; 2007- On Council RIA 2000-2004 Secretary RIA.; Vice President RIA 2008-; Member National Archives Advisory Council 1997-2007; Member Higher Education Authority 2007-; Deputy Chair HEA 2008-
Professor Adrian Guelke Adrian Guelke is Professor of Comparative Politics in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University, Belfast. He is the director of the School’s Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict. Recent publications include The New Age of Terrorism (IB Tauris, 2009), Terrorism and Global Disorder (IB Tauris, 2006) and Rethinking the Rise and Fall of Apartheid (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). He is the chair of the International Political Science Association’s research committee on politics and ethnicity.
Professor Stephen Howe Stephen Howe is Professor in the History and Cultures of Colonialism, University of Bristol, and co-editor of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. His books include Ireland and Empire (2000), Empire: a very short introduction (2002), and the forthcoming Intellectual consequences of Decolonisation and (as editor) New Imperial Histories.
Dr Brian Jackson Brian Jackson is Director of the John Hume Institute, University College Dublin. His principal research interests are the institutional, structural and cultural development of religious corporations, the influence of the regular clergy and Irish members of religious orders on Catholic religious and social culture during the Counter-Reformation period both in Ireland and in the wider world.
Rev Brian Kennaway Brian was brought up in North Belfast. After a time in industry he attended Magee University College Londonderry, and Trinity College Dublin where he graduated in 1972. He attended Union Theological College Belfast and was ordained into the Ministry of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, in 1976. He served as Assistant Minister in Glengormley Presbyterian Church in North Belfast before becoming Minister of Crumlin Presbyterian Church, County Antrim, in 1977. He retired from Crumlin Presbyterian Church in January 2009. He is still active in the wider Church serving on a number of Boards and Committees of the General Assembly. Brian has served on the Irish Government’s Inter-Departmental Committee, for the development of the Boyne Site, and was a regular contributor at the Police College of the RUC/PSNI. He has been an active member of the Council of The Irish Association, whose aims and objectives he enthusiastically endorses. He was appointed President in succession to Professor Pauline Murphy on 9th May 2009.
Professor Brigid Laffan Brigid Laffan PhD, took office as the Principal of the College of Human Sciences, University College Dublin in September 2004. In 1991, Professor Laffan was appointed as Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics in the Department of Politics, UCD. She was the founding Director of the Dublin European Institute UCD in 1999. In March 2004, she was elected as a member of the Royal Irish Academy. She is a member of the Research Council of the European University (EUI) Florence, the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) and the Irish Government’s High Level Asia Strategy Group. Professor Laffan is author of Integration and Co-operation in Europe, 1992, The Finances of the Union, 1997 and co- author of Europe’s Experimental Union 2000, and Ireland and the European Union 2008. She has published numerous articles in the Journal of Common Market Studies and the European Journal of Public Policy. Professor Laffan co-ordinated a six country cross national research project Organising for Enlargement (2001-2004), financed by the EU Commission’s Fifth Framework Programme and is part of an integrated research project on New Governance in Europe.
Dr Martin Mansergh, TD Martin Mansergh is Minister of State at the Department of Finance (with special responsibility for the Office of Public Works) and at the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism (with responsibility for the Arts). He was elected to Dáil Éireann in May 2008 for Tipperary South. Appointed to the Council of State by President Mary McAleese, 2004. Dr Mansergh was elected to Seanad Éireann in 2002. He has been Political and Northern Advisor to three Taoisigh and leaders of Fianna Fáil over 21 years, 1981 – 2002. Civil Servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs 1974-81, and in the Department of the Taoiseach in 1981. Author of The Legacy of History for Making Peace in Ireland (Mercier Press, 2003) and Co-winner with Fr. Reid and Rev Roy Magee of Tipperary Peace Prize, 1994.
Professor Orla Muldoon Professor Orla Muldoon is the Foundation Chair and Head of Department at the Department of Psychology at University of Limerick. Since graduating with an undergraduate degree in psychology from Queens University Belfast in 1993 (1st Hons) and subsequently a PhD, Professor Muldoon has been engaged in teaching and research in the area of social psychology. Her overarching research interest concerns the impact of group memberships on social behaviours. Interests include how perceiving one-self as a member of a religious, socio-economic or racial group can impact on views of the self and others, how these group memberships are transmitted to and understood by children and young people and how such memberships impact on mental health. In much of her research she has used existing groups in Northern Ireland, though much of the evidence from Northern Ireland can and does converge with the wider literature on these topics. Previous appointments were as a Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer and Director of Health and Social Issues Research Cluster at Queen's University Belfast (1998-2007) and Lecturer at University of Ulster, Magee College (1996-1998).
Professor Tadhg O’Hannrachain Tadhg O’Hannrachain is a Senior Lecturer at University College Dublin. Books: Catholic Reformation in Ireland: The Mission of Rinuccini, 1645-49 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) and edited with Robert Armstrong, Community in Early Modern Ireland (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2006). He is currently under contract to Oxford University Press for a book entitled Catholic Europe: Centre and Periphery, 1592-1648 which he hopes to complete next year. Professor O’Hannrachain is also author of approximately twenty-five articles.
Professor Brendan O’Leary Brendan O'Leary was born in Cork. He grew up in Nigeria, the Sudan, and Northern Ireland, mostly in Antrim and Down. A political scientist and constitutional advisor, he is the Lauder Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and Director of the Penn Program in Ethnic Conflict. He was previously Professor of Political Science at the LSE, where he acted as an advisor to Kevin McNamara and Marjorie Mowlam.
He is the author, co-author, editor and co-editor of 19 books. His most recent is How To Get Out of Iraq with Integrity, which is partly based on his experiences as a constitutional advisor to the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Sir George Quigley Sir George Quigley graduated with a first-class honours degree and Ph.D. from Queen’s University Belfast. After a career in the Civil Service he became Chairman of Ulster Bank, (a subsidiary of Nat West, later Royal Bank of Scotland), a post he occupied until 2001. He also served for 10 years as a non-executive director on the Main Board of Nat West and retired in 2002 as Chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland Pension Fund. His roles in public life in Northern Ireland have included Chairmanship of the NI Economic Council and The Royal Group of Hospitals and conduct of a Review of the Parades Commission. Sir George served on the Dearing Committee on Higher Education in the UK. In the Republic of Ireland, his roles have included Presidency of the Economic and Social Research Institute and of the International Trade Institute of Ireland. He has given the Sir Charles Carter Lecture of the Northern Ireland Economic Council and the Gold Medal Industry Lecture of the Royal Dublin Society. He holds Honorary Doctorates from Queen’s University and from the University of Ulster and The Open University. In 2007 he was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. His current appointments include the Chairmanship of Bombardier Aerospace Belfast and of Lothbury Property Trust. He is also a non-executive director of Independent News and Media (UK) and Chairman of the Board of The Institute of British-Irish Studies, UCD.
Professor Joseph Ruane Joseph Ruane is Associate Professor in Sociology at University College Cork. Publications include: ‘Majority-minority conflicts and their resolution: Protestant minorities in France and in Ireland’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 12, 3 & 4, 2006, pp. 509-532; and (with David Butler), ‘Identity, difference and community in Southern Irish Protestantism: The Protestants of West Cork’, National Identities, 2009, 11.1.
Dr Clifford Stevenson Dr Clifford Stevenson is a lecturer in psychology at the University of Limerick. His research examines how national identities are represented in talk, interaction and collective behaviour. His current projects include an IRCHSS funded examination of public displays of Irish national identity in Belfast and Dublin (with Professor Orla Muldoon, UL) as well as Northern Ireland Office funded research into the phenomenon of flag flying in Northern Ireland (with Dr Dominic Bryan, QUB).