The former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Seamus Mallon will officially open the 6th annual Kennedy Summer School in New Ross County Wexford on the evening of Thursday, September 5th.
During the 1960s, Seamus Mallon was introduced to politics through the Civil Rights movement. He became Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) in 1979. In a distinguished political career, he served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2001. At the Summer School, he will participate in a public interview with Eileen Dunne discussing his fascinating career and his recently published memoir, “A Shared Home Place” and his perspective on current developments, or lack of them, in Northern Ireland.
He was elected to the Power-Sharing Assembly in 1973. Mallon served briefly in Seanad Éireann, having been appointed by the then Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, in 1982. He was elected in the same year to the Northern Ireland Assembly. In 1986, he was elected in a by-election to Westminster. As a central figure in the peace process, his viewpoint was shaped by growing up as a Catholic in a predominantly Protestant village. Mallon gained a reputation for speaking out against violence from all sides. He was a key architect of the Good Friday Agreement.
The annual Kennedy Summer School is set to host a number of expert discussions and is billed as ‘A Festival of Irish and American, History, Politics and Culture’. There will be over 50 guest speakers participating over three days on a wide range of different subjects and organisers say that Brexit and Ireland’s relationship with the U.S. will feature prominently.
There will be a series of public interviews including an audience with distinguished New York Times columnist, winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize and author of three New York Times bestsellers, Maureen Dowd, Former Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland Seamus Mallon, Archbishop Eamon Martin, former Congressman and classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton Bruce Morrison, Micheál Martin TD, Stefanie Preissner, Dick Spring, Mick Wallace, Joan Burton, Michael McDowell and more Politicians, News correspondents, authors and leading global academics and many more will all partake in the 2019 Kennedy Summer School.
