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Release date: Oct. 10, 2003 Sinn Fein Member to Speak at Emory Nov. 12WHO: Martin McGuinness, former minister of education, Northern Ireland Assembly; Sinn Féin parliament member for Mid-Ulster, British House of Commons WHAT: “Education and Peace in Northern Ireland" WHEN: Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. WHERE: 208 White Hall, 480 Kilgo Circle, Emory. COST: Free and open to the public. For more information, call 404-727-6180 or 404-727-6464. Sponsored by the W.B. Yeats Foundation and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Martin McGuinness, one of the leading political figures in Northern Ireland and former minister of education in the Northern Ireland Assembly, will lecture on “Education and Peace in Northern Ireland" at Emory University on Wednesday, Nov. 12 at 8 p.m. in 208 White Hall, 480 Kilgo Circle, Emory. The event is free and open to the public. A native of the Bogside in the city of Derry, Northern Ireland, the scene of a civil rights protest that drew world attention in the late 1960s, McGuinness has been involved in high-level talks with British and American officials as the chief negotiator of the Sinn Féin Party in the Northern Ireland peace talks. While commanding officer of the Derry Brigade of the Irish Republican Army in the early 1970s, McGuinness served prison time for his military activities and in 1982 was excluded from entering Britain under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. McGuinness later became minister of education in the 1999 Northern Ireland Assembly where his work advancing educational reform in both Protestant and Catholic schools won wide support. One of his reforms was to abolish the notorious Eleven Plus Exam that identified those school children with “academic potential” who were then allowed to advance to secondary school and university. Other children were limited to either entering the work force or attending a technical school. McGuinness himself failed the Eleven Plus Exam and, at age 15, found employment in a butcher shop. According to many observers, no individual has had a greater impact than McGuinness on the conduct of war or the achievement of peace in Northern Ireland. McGuinness will provide an insider’s view of the political, social and sectarian issues that still divide the people of Northern Ireland. One of these issues concerns a school system that continues to separate Protestant and Catholic children in primary and secondary schools. As minister of education McGuinness firmly opposed this system because he saw it as one of the chief causes of the sectarian divisions of Northern Ireland. Other issues he will address include the abolition of the Northern Irish Assembly by the British Government, delays over the calling of an election to renew the Northern Irish Assembly, and equitable power sharing according to the policies adopted by the Good Friday Agreement of March 1998. McGuinness also will discuss what to many observers is the most contentious obstacle to the whole peace process: the reluctance of the IRA to decommission or destroy its weapons, particularly timely since he will be coming to Atlanta directly after giving testimony at the tribunal underway in Derry to examine the respective roles of the British Army and the IRA in the infamous “Bloody Sunday” massacre of 1968. Albert Reynolds, former prime minister of Ireland and one of the key architects of the Northern Irish peace process as well as the remarkable economic boom in Ireland known as “The Celtic Tiger,” will speak at Emory on Nov. 7. Reynolds’ talk, sponsored by the Ireland Chamber of Commerce USA and the W. B. Yeats Foundation, is titled “Ireland: Gateway to Europe/Bridge to America.” The lecture will at 4 p.m. in the Boynton Auditorium of the Goizueta Business School, 1400 Clifton Road, and will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Reynolds, Donald R. Keough, former president of The Coca-Cola Company and current chairman of Allen & Company, and Tom Noonan, chairman and CEO of Internet Securities Systems Inc. Reynolds, in addition to discussing the business and economic side of Ireland, also will offer his observations on the current state of the Northern Ireland peace process. ### Emory University is a highly selective, comprehensive research university known for its academically demanding undergraduate college, highly ranked professional schools and world-class research facilities. For more than a decade, Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare |
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