Eamon Gilmore—EU as Peace-Maker: The Cases of Northern Ireland & Colombia

In this lecture, the European Union (EU) Special Envoy for the Peace Process in Colombia—Mr Eamon Gilmore, pictured above—will outline Europe’s role in peace-making, with particular reference to Northern Ireland and Colombia, and discuss the importance of the EU’s peace work in today’s world and Ireland’s key place in that context.

From its foundation, the EU has arguably been the world’s most successful peace process by bringing together the countries that fought each other in the European and World Wars of the 20th century. In 2012, the EU won the Nobel Peace Prize for its political efforts in advancing the causes of peace, reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe.

Today the EU advocates for, and contributes to, the peaceful resolution of conflicts throughout the world. It supports many peace processes, politically, diplomatically, and financially. The EU was a major supporter of the Northern Ireland peace process, and is supporting the recent peace agreement in Colombia.

CHAIR—The lecture will be chaired by Prof Alan Ahearne, Director of the Whitaker Institute for Innovation and Societal Change.

RESPONDENTS—Dr Niall Ó Dochartaigh (School of Political Science and Sociology, and Lead of the Conflict, Humanitarianism and Security research cluster) and Dr Anita Ferrara (Irish Centre for Human Rights) will give responses to the lecture.

BIOGRAPHY

Eamon Gilmore is the EU Special Envoy for the Peace Process in Colombia. He is a former Tanaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was leader of the Irish Labour Party from 2007 to 2014, and represented the constituency of Dun Laoghaire in Dail Eireann for 27 years.

Originally from Caltra, Co. Galway, Mr Gilmore is a graduate of NUI Galway where he was President of the Students’ Union (and of USI) in the mid-1970s. He is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Law and Governance in Dublin City University, and earlier this year was Visiting Practitioner Chair at the School of Public Policy, Central European University, Budapest. He is the author of two books: “Leading Lights” (2010) and “Inside the Room” (2015), the latter dealing with his experience in Ireland’s crisis government in the years 2011–2014.

Mr Gilmore was conferred with an Honorary Doctorate in Laws by NUI Galway in 2016. He was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the Government of France, and has been named as one of the world’s “Leading Global Thinkers” by the Washington-based Foreign Policy magazine. He has recently been short-listed for the European “Innovation in Politics” award for his roles in establishing the Constitutional Convention and for the Referendum that approved same-sex marriage.