Reconciling Memories – Shaping a New Future: The Experience of the Peace Process in Northern Ireland
As the war in Ukraine continues to cause profound suffering, displacement, and loss, the Dominican Family is invited to reflect on how our tradition of preaching can contribute to healing and reconciliation. In this spirit, the Dominican Family will host a webinar on 16 December 2025, from 3:00 to 4:30 PM (Rome time), entitled “Finding a Response of the Dominican Family to the War in Ukraine.” By examining how communities navigate painful memories and contested histories, the webinar hopes to help participants consider how the Dominican Family might accompany the people of Ukraine in this difficult time.
We are deeply honored to welcome Dr. Mary McAleese, former President of Ireland, as the principal speaker. Born in Belfast and shaped by the violence of The Troubles, Dr. McAleese made the pursuit of reconciliation the defining theme of her presidency from 1997 to 2011. Her leadership contributed significantly to the Northern Irish peace process, culminating in the historic 2011 state visit of H.M. Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland — a moment widely regarded as a symbol of healing between communities long divided by conflict. Today Dr. McAleese continues her dedication to dialogue as Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, as Chair of the Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion at the University of Notre Dame, and as Patron of the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Enquiry at Cambridge.
She will be joined by Sr. Geraldine Smyth, OP, a Dominican educator and theologian whose life’s work has centered on ecumenics and peacebuilding. For more than thirty years, Sr. Geraldine has been a guiding figure at the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin, where she has twice served as Director and has worked extensively in academic, civic, and ecclesial contexts to promote dialogue across deep divisions. Her experience brings a distinctive Dominican voice to the question of how communities can remember truthfully without becoming trapped by the pain of the past.
Adding to this conversation is Dr. Andrew Pierce, Lecturer and Assistant Professor in the School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies at Trinity College Dublin. A former head of the Irish School of Ecumenics and past president of Societas Oecumenica, Dr. Pierce has long engaged the theological and social dimensions of reconciliation. His perspective will help frame the challenges and possibilities of peacebuilding within communities shaped by suffering and conflict.
The webinar will also feature Pádraig Ó Tuama, poet, theologian, and conflict mediator whose creative and spiritual insights have influenced peace work across Ireland and beyond. As former leader of the Corrymeela Community, Ireland’s oldest center for peace and reconciliation, Ó Tuama has devoted years to helping people find language that can hold pain without perpetuating it. His poetry, including his recent collections Kitchen Hymns and 44 Poems on Being with Each Other, explores the fragile but necessary work of living together in the aftermath of violence.
Advance registration required
Together, the speakers will reflect on how the experience of the Northern Irish peace process might illuminate the Dominican Family’s response to the war in Ukraine. They will consider how storytelling, shared memory, honest lament, and patient dialogue can contribute to the building of a future marked not by recrimination but by hope. The event will highlight the ways in which the Dominican tradition — with its emphasis on truth, compassion, and the healing power of the Word — can accompany those who seek peace amid the wounds of war.
Those who wish to attend are invited to register by writing to dsi@curia.op.org before 10 December 2025. Simultaneous translation into French and Spanish will be provided.
