Organised by the Hume Foundation, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation and held in the Ulster University Belfast Campus on Tuesday 28 May 2024. Filmed and edited by Alan Meban.

Agenda
Tuesday  28 May 2024 Ulster University Belfast

Welcome: Professor Paul Arthur John and Pat Hume Foundation, and Duncan Morrow. Ulster University Belfast

Session 1: The Negotiations

Sean Donlon, Irish diplomat involved in negotiations
Noel Dorr, Irish diplomat involved in negotiations
Lord Paul Bew, Professor of Irish Politics at Queen’s University Belfast 

Chair: Professor Paul Arthur

Session 2: Perspectives on 1973/74 Power sharing NI Executive

Chris Maccabe, former NIO private secretary Brian Faulkner
Hugh Logue, SDLP Member of 1973 Assembly
Eileen Weir Community activist Shankill Road
Geoffrey Martin, Former Head of the Representation of the European Commission in the United Kingdom

Chair: Dawn Purvis, Vice Chair Hume Foundation

Session 3: The Principles of Peace Making – Nonviolence, dialogue and diplomacy

Bríd Rodgers, former MLA and Minister of Agriculture  to speak on the principles of nonviolence, dialogue and diplomacy which were central to Sunningdale and formed basis of the GFA negotiations.

Close and thankyou: Neil Carmichael, the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation

Profiles:

Sean Donlon had a long and distinguished career in the Irish public service, served as Irish Ambassador to the United States of America and Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs. He was played a central role in the Sunningdale Agreement.

Noel Dorr, a former Irish diplomat and author of Sunningdale: the search for peace in Northern Ireland. He served as the Permanent Representative of Ireland at the United Nations. He was the Irish Ambassador to the United Kingdom and then served as Secretary General of Ireland’s Foreign Ministry.

Lord Paul Bew is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Queens University Belfast and serves as a cross bench peer.

Professor Paul Arthur Professor of Politics, Emeritus Director of the Graduate Program in Peace and Conflict Studies Ulster University

Hugh Logue, a member of  Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973.  Former European Commission official, and EU envoy to establish, with John Hume, EU Peace Package. Founder member of SDLP and elected with John Hume for Derry constituency.

Chris Maccabe is a former Political Director of the Northern Ireland Office, and a former British Joint Secretary of the British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference. He was deeply involved in the protracted negotiations that led up to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

In December 1973 he was appointed a Private Secretary to the incoming Chief Minister, Brian Faulkner: since then he has had more than fifty year’s first-hand experience of engagement with governments, political parties and paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland and many other parts of the world.

Geoff Martin OBE, Inaugural head of the European Commission Office in Northern Ireland 1979–1984, and later Head of the European Commission Representation in the UK, 1993–2002.

Bríd Rodgers civil rights campaigner, SDLP MLA, key negotiator in GFA, former Minister for Agriculture

Eileen Weir peacemaker and  community activist with Shankill Women’s Centre

Dawn Purvis Head of Corporate Affairs at Choice Housing Ireland Limited, Former MLA and Leader Progressive Unionist Party

Neil Carmichael, Honorary Professor, University of Nottingham, and UCL (IoE), is Executive Chair of the Association of Dental Groups, Chief Executive of UK China Education Cooperation (UCEC), and a member of Science Policy Expert Advisory Committee, Royal Society.

Neil is a trustee of the Sir Heinz Koeppler Trust (Wilton Park, FCDO) and is a Trustee of the Sir Edward Heath Charitable Foundation, and currently leading the Trust’s Edward Heath University Lecture Series. Recently, Neil was made a Chartered Companion of the Chartered Management Institute.

Neil was Member of Parliament for Stroud (2010-17), serving on the Education Select Committee throughout period and latterly as Chair.