Trinity honorary degrees mark Good Friday Agreement anniversary

Posted on: 06 April 2023

To mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, four individuals who played significant roles in these historic events were conferred today with honorary degrees of the University of Dublin at Trinity College Dublin.  

[Watch video of the day here.]

Senior political adviser Martin Mansergh, former Downing Street Chief of Staff Jonathan Powell, activist Monica McWilliams, and American foreign policy strategist Nancy Soderberg received Trinity’s highest honour from Trinity’s Chancellor Dr Mary McAleese at a ceremony conducted in Latin in the historic Public Theatre.

Above l to r are Nancy Soderberg (taking selfie), Martin Mansergh, Dr Mary McAleese, Dr Linda Doyle, Monica McWilliams and Jonathan Powell

 Martin Mansergh (Doctor in Laws) 

 Martin Mansergh’s (below) career has seen him serve as a Senator, a TD and a Minister of State. In 1994 he was co-winner of the Tipperary Peace Prize with Fr. Alec Reid and Rev. Roy Magee and in 2018 he was elected a Member of the Royal Irish Academy. He was appointed by President Mary McAleese as member of Council of State in 2004. His work behind the scenes in the lead up to the Good Friday/Belfast agreement was critical to the peace process. As political advisor on Northern Ireland to three Taoisigh - Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds, and Bertie Ahern - Mansergh was a backchannel to the Republican Movement and contributed to the negotiation of the Downing Street Declaration and the Good Friday Agreement.  To Sinn Féin and the IRA he was known simply as ‘the man’ and it was he who was able to persuade them to take the path of peace. The British Prime Minister John Major praised his ‘profound historical knowledge’ as an ‘invaluable asset’ in the search for peace in Northern Ireland. In 2011, then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny invited him to be deputy chair of the expert Advisory Group on Centenary Commemorations, which ends its work in 2023. 

Public Orator Anna Chahoud said in tribute: “For many years, at great personal peril, his approaches to the Republican Movement were instrumental to making the Good Friday Agreement a reality that few would have previously believed possible. The Taoiseach who signed the Agreement, Bertie Ahern, beautifully encapsulated this man’s qualities when he called him “a straight talker who everyone trusted.” His actions have always been driven by exceptional devotion to the cause of peace and guided by a profound knowledge of the history of this island.” 

Monica McWilliams (Doctor in Laws) 

 Monica McWilliams’s contributions both to peace in Northern Ireland and to enhancing the role of women in multiple political contexts are quite simply unparalleled. She is Emeritus Professor in the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University and sits on the Independent Reporting Commission for the disbandment of paramilitary organisations in Northern Ireland. She was an MLA for Belfast South (1998-2003); Chair of the Implementation Committee on Human Rights (on behalf of the British and Irish Governments); Chief Commissioner of the NI (Northern Ireland) Human Rights Commission (2005-2011) and Oversight Commissioner for Prison Reform in Northern Ireland (2011-2015). She was elected as a delegate at the Multi-Party Peace Negotiations, which led to the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998 (and was one of only two female signatories of the agreement).  In the peace accord, she secured key outcomes such as restitution for victims, inclusion of reconciliation, integrated education, shared housing, and a civic forum in addition to addressing other key issues for the peace agreement. Monica McWilliams broke the mould in so many ways, as a woman, as an activist and as a politician. Hillary Clinton said that ‘Anyone interested in Ireland, ending conflicts, making lasting peace, defending human rights, women in politics, and feminism should read her work’. 

Public Orator Anna Chahoud, calling Monica McWilliam’s “inspiring”, added: “Born in Ballymoney, growing up in Kilrea, living in Belfast, from an early age she knew how hard it is “to be a woman in public life in a divided society.” We all remember how much harder it was at times of unspeakable misogyny to bring women to the table and claim their right to active political participation. To this unshakable tower of strength we owe the preparatory work on the ground, bringing peace-building women together to build consensus through respect, inclusion, equality; to her we owe the references in the agreement to reconciliation and victims of violence on both sides; it is her voice that we hear in the statements about encouraging integrated education, shared housing, resources for the community.” 

Jonathan Powell (Doctor in Laws) 

Jonathan Powell’s contribution to peacebuilding across the world is simply remarkable. He is, however, nominated for an honorary doctorate for his role in the Northern Irish peace process. 

From 1997-2007 he was the Downing Street Chief of Staff and was the chief British government negotiator on Northern Ireland during that time in office. For a decade he sat with unionist and republican leaders at the heart of the Northern Ireland peace process. Through his own personal contribution and through his own persona he built up the necessary trust to enable the peace process and the negotiations and was by common consent one of the key elements in the forging of a settlement in Northern Ireland. Tony Blair has acknowledged that ‘Even if they did not trust me, they trusted him. Sometimes Adams and McGuinness would take things from him that they wouldn't take from me.’ His involvement also extends to the attempts to build upon the agreement, achieve decommissioning, power-sharing, and a new future in the period up to the St. Andrews Agreement (2006). Gerry Adams has written about how effective Powell was saying that ‘He was constantly engaged with the Irish problem. He was in and out of here secretly on numerous occasions. He was someone you could pick up the phone to and he was always available and there were times when I rang when I knew it wasn't opportune because I could hear children in the background or whatever, but he would always take the call.’ His was a truly exceptional contribution to the making of peace in Ireland.  

Public Orator Anna Chahoud said of Powell: “As in the characteristically incisive title of the book which our candidate published in 2009, following the St Andrews Agreement, making peace in Northern Ireland was a case of Great Hatred, Little Room. What he achieved then, he says, is the source of the greatest pride in his life: peace was made. Now he reminds us that peace must be preserved, because the primary goal of the Good Friday Agreement was the elimination of hatred and violence through “a flexible border enabling people to feel Irish, British, or both.” 

Nancy Soderberg (Doctor in Laws) 

 Nancy Soderberg has been a major player in international relations for close to three decades, however, it is for her role in promoting and protecting the Northern Irish peace process that she is nominated for an Honorary Doctorate.  

Ms Soderberg was President Clinton’s Chief Advisor on Northern Ireland, and played a crucial role in the development of the peace process in the 1990s. She worked to create the conditions for peace and then worked tirelessly on the ground – on both sides of the border – to create a lasting second ceasefire and the basis for an agreement. To quote Professor Paul Arthur, a member of the Hume Foundation Board: ‘Ambassador Soderberg is a remarkable diplomat who did an enormous amount to bring peace in Ireland’. As Deputy National Security Advisor to President Clinton, she was instrumental in guiding US policy which led to the 1994 ceasefire. In particular in January 1994, at a difficult stage in the peace process, and on Soderberg’s advice, President Bill Clinton issued a visa to allow Gerry Adams to enter the United States, a move which was heavily criticised at the time (even by many State Department officials). Soderberg argued that without symbolic gestures of this time, it would be far more difficult for the IRA to call a ceasefire. 

Critically, however, Soderberg was always politically neutral. As Professor Roy Foster wrote in the Financial Times (June 2002) this proved convincing and ‘Gerry Adams adopted the Soderberg Approach’. Today Soderberg is part of the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement, made up of more than 40 people who have spent decades working to support the peace deal. She continues to defend and protect the peace she helped to create. 

Public Orator Anna Chahoud said: “We are proud to bestow our highest academic honour on a formidable woman, who teaches us the greatest responsibility of all: the children of Northern Ireland were spared the wounds of the past, and they deserve to breathe the fresh air of solidarity, prosperity, and justice. And, as she has been doing all her life, they will change the world for the right reasons.” 

ENDS

• Tags:
• Awards and Funding
• Community
• Society