At the conference on ‘The Good Friday Agreement – Twenty-five Years On’ at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, on 7 November 2023, Philip McDonagh spoke about his experience of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and the principles behind successful peace processes.

It’s a great honour to speak to you this morning about my experience of peacebuilding, especially in Northern Ireland. As Deputy Head of Mission in London, I worked on the peace process for five years during the build-up to the Good Friday Agreement. I had the privilege of engaging in depth with the Nobel Prize winners John Hume and David Trimble. In later years, I have been involved in efforts to share lessons of the peace process in several other situations of conflict.

Before turning to Northern Ireland, I will describe how I learned about the holocaust as a child and how my sense of right and wrong in politics is deeply bound up with my understanding of what was done to the Jewish people of Europe. The main part of my presentation will describe the principles underlying the Northern Ireland peace process as I understand them. By way of illustrating those principles, I will say something about my engagement with the conflicts in Kashmir and Sri Lanka. This will show, I hope, that it is often possible to bring useful lessons from one situation to another, even if the situations are quite different. Finally, I will refer to the research we have been doing at our Centre in DCU on the overall state of global politics. In this connection, I will touch briefly on current conflicts. I hope that all this will leave some time for dialogue and interaction.