On 4 October, Fellows from the Mitchell Institute participated in a roundtable discussion titled “Where Next for Northern Ireland?”, hosted by colleagues at the Irish Studies Programme, Boston College.

The event built upon the Agreement 25 international conference that the Mitchell Institute also helped to organise at QUB in April, but allowed an update on the current political impasse in Northern Ireland as efforts are still being made to restore power-sharing.

As well as being sponsored by the Mitchell Institute and Boston College, support came from the Irish Institute at QUB, the NI Bureau, and the UK and Irish Consulates in Boston.  Irish Consul General, Síghle FitzGerald, attended and spoke to introduce the event alongside the British Deputy Consul General, Tom Nickalls, and the NI Bureau Deputy Director, Eamonn McConville.  The Sullivan Chair in Irish Studies at Boston College, Prof Guy Beiner, was the gracious host, and his colleague, Dr Rachael Young, was a terrific chair for the discussion, managing questions from the large and very engaged audience.

Prof Dominic Bryan, Institute Fellow: Legacy; Professor, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, a political anthropologist with particular expertise on group identity, spoke primarily about the continued communal divisions in Northern Ireland, and how the institutions of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement have attempted to accommodate those, but in some ways have institutionalised them.

Dr Cheryl Lawther, Institute Fellow: Legacy; Reader, School of Law, is a leading authority on transitional justice and dealing with the past in Northern Ireland.  She thus provided expert analysis of the UK government’s recent Legacy and Reconciliation Bill, which had provoked criticism amongst Irish-America as well as in Northern Ireland.  Dr Lawther is well known at Boston College, having previously presented her work there whilst participating in the staff exchange programme between the college and the Irish Institute at QUB.

Dr Peter McLoughlin, Institute Fellow: Legacy; Senior Lecturer and Director of Internationalisation, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics, is also familiar to Boston College, having been there as a former Fulbright Scholar at Boston College, where he conducted research on the US role in Northern Ireland. He spoke about how Brexit has polarised politics in the region and reanimated debate on the constitutional question.  However, Dr McLoughlin also noted that this is a very binary debate that obscures more nuanced and plural identities in the region, particularly amongst younger people.  Directly addressing the theme of the roundtable, “Where Next for Northern Ireland?”, he argued the need to move beyond the debate over continued Union with Britian or reunification with the Republic of Ireland to consider options like condominium that reflect the reality of a still divided polity.

Reflecting on the event, Peter said:

“Hosting this debate in Boston is important given the vital role that the US played and indeed continues to play in our peace process – as is recognised in the naming of the Mitchell Institute.

The event also allowed us to strengthen our existing partnership with Boston College, and particularly its Irish Studies Programme.

Guy and Rachael were wonderful hosts, and we are very much looking forward to working more with them to help better understand the continued challenges to peace in Northern Ireland, but also how international partners like the US can help progress here.”