From Belfast to Baghdad: UMass Boston’s Moakley Scholar To Deliver Four Lectures on Peace and Reconciliation
The University of Massachusetts Boston will celebrate the work of Padraig O’Malley, named the university’s first John Joseph Moakley Distinguished Professor of Peace and Reconciliation, with a series of four lectures by the veteran researcher, who distinguished himself as a chronicler of conflict and peace in Northern Ireland and South Africa.
The Dublin-born O’Malley was founder and editor of UMass Boston McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies’ New England Journal of Public Policy for more than 20 years and has authored many books, among them the award-winning Uncivil Wars: Ireland Today, Biting at the Grave, and Shades of Difference, which will be published in April. Former president Nelson Mandela has written a 10,000-word forward to the book.
The John Joseph Moakley Chair for Peace and Reconciliation was established in memory of the late Massachusetts congressman from South Boston. Moakley was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1973 and served until his death in 2001. In addition to serving as chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, Moakley’s investigation of the murder of six Jesuits in El Salvador opened the way to a peaceful settlement between the rebels and the Salvadoran government.
“Congressman Moakley lived by his friend and fellow Congressman Tip O’Neil’s credo that ‘all politics are local.’ It is fitting that the university and generous supporters have established the Moakley Chair at the McCormack Graduate School, the premier center for scholarship on social issues affecting Boston and the Commonwealth,” McCormack Dean Steve Crosby said. “Padraig O’Malley is a scholar and chronicler worthy of the honor of being the first to hold the Moakley Chair.”
In 2005, O’Malley founded the “Heart of Hope” web site, which contains transcripts of 3,000 interviews that he conducted between 1989 and 2003 in South Africa. A cooperative effort between UMass Boston, the University of the Western Cape, and Robben Island Museum, the website provides an on-line catalogue of O’Malley’s oral history project. The recordings and other website materials were also placed on CD-ROM and distributed to every school and library in South Africa.
“My great fortune has been to be present where one-time opponents have sought to reconcile their differences and forge peaceful futures for their countries,” said O’Malley. “The words of those participants hold powerful lessons for societies across the world and my focus at the McCormack Graduate School has been to try to make those lessons available to as many people as possible.”
The Moakley Chair was funded via gifts from private donors, corporations, foundations and the state’s public higher education endowment incentive program. Lead donors for this initiative were: Joseph Corcoran, the Estate of John Corcoran, Richard Egan, the John Joseph Moakley Charitable Foundation, Liberty Mutual and Sovereign Bank New England.
This semester O’Malley will deliver four lectures at UMass Boston to share lessons from the past and hopes for a peaceful future across three regions of the world. The topics are:
- When Peace Comes Dropping Low: Some Lessons from Northern Ireland Wednesday, March 28, 4:30 to 6:00, 11th Floor, Healey Library
- The Long March Continues: South African, The Post-Apartheid Struggle Thursday, April 19, 4:30 to 6:00, Ryan Lounge, McCormack Building
- All Has Changed, Changed Utterly: The Middle East after the U.S. Invasion
Thursday, May 3, 4:30 to 6:00 11th Floor, Healey Library
- Sharing the Peace? Northern Ireland, South Africa, the Middle East
Thursday, May 10, 4:30 to 6:00 11th Floor, Healey Library
The first lecture comes on the heels of recent events in Northern Ireland that may forge a most unlikely partnership at the core of a power-sharing government: Rev. Ian Paisley, leader of the right-wing Democratic Unionist Party as First Minister and Martin McGuiness, vice president of Sinn Féin and once chief of staff of the IRA as Deputy. Such a government signals the end of the Northern Ireland conflict, O’Malley said. After close to 40 years of violence and bloodshed, O’Malley will discuss the factors that account for this extraordinary about-face.
Frederick W. Clark Jr., president of the J. Joseph Moakley Foundation and the congressman’s former district director, said O’Malley’s focus on the people and personalities behind tumultuous events at the close of the 20th century struck a chord with the late congressman, whose legacy is marked by a clear understanding of the challenges that face working men and women and their families.
“Congressman Moakley’s memory is honored by the human stories that Padraig O’Malley has so carefully documented and preserved as an astute researcher during the last two decades,” said Clark. “The Moakley Foundation is proud to partner with UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School to advance scholarship that supports peace and democracy throughout the world.”