Bronagh Hinds, founding member of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition and member ot the NICW Talks Team at the Stormont negotiations, was in Baltimore on April 27. After meeting with Mayor Kurt L.Schmoke and members of the Baltimore City Council, Ms. Hinds joined Bairbre deBrun, a representative of Sinn Fein, Mary Boergers, Director of the Ireland-U.S. Public Leadership Program at the University of Maryland, and Michael A. Creedon, Visiting Professor of University College Cork, in a panel discussion entitled "Lessons from the Irish Peace Accords - The Women's Voice in Conflict Resolution for the Twenty-First Century," held at Loyola College.

The event was sponsored by "Friendships Without Borders," and Loyola College's Philosophy Department. Friendships Without Borders is a newly founded organization that seeks, among other things, to promote cross-cultural dialogue and understanding initially targeting high school and college students. Its founder, Dr. Niall P. MacAllister, is a retired physician whose parents emigrated from Belfast to England, where he was born. Dr. MacAllister is currently a resident of Towson.

Bronagh Hinds, a member of the Monitoring Committee of the Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, and founding Chair of the UK Joint Committee on Women, is also Executive Director of the Ulster People's College which specializes in "education, training and development designed to secure inclusive non-discriminatory delivery of and opportunities in political, economic, social and cultural development." Ms. Hinds served as Commissioner of the Equal Opportunities Commission for seven years and also served as Northern Ireland Director of the International Development Agency Oxfam.

Ms. Hind talked about the struggle for peace in Northern Ireland, in particular addressing the efforts to ensure that women have equal participation and representation. She emphasized that the three main objectives of the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition encompass issues of; "inclusion, human rights and equity."

Bairbre de Brun is a Senior Negotiator for Sinn Fein and Director of the International Affairs Department. A teacher by profession, Ms. De Brun is fluent in Irish, English and French. She played a key role as a senior negotiator at the Stormont peace negotiations, chaired by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.

The visit by these dynamic leaders gave Baltimore an opportunity to get first-hand accounts of the historic Peace Accords in Northern Ireland. The presence of Bronagh Hinds and Bairbre de Brun in this small eastern city highlighted, at another level, the universality of the struggle for equal access and representation as these are experienced across the globe.

Haydee M. Rodriguez
Baltimore Progress (May 1998)

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