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Padraig O'Malley (born 1942 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish international peacemaker, author, and professor. O'Malley specializes in the problems of divided societies, such as South Africa and Northern Ireland. He has written extensively on these subjects and has been actively involved in promoting dialogue among representatives of differing factions. He is currently the John Joseph Moakley Distinguished Professor of Peace and Reconciliation at the University of Massachusetts Boston. [1]
O'Malley was born in Dublin. He was educated at University College, Dublin, and at Yale, Tufts and Harvard universities in the United States. [2]
O'Malley spent 20 years involved with the conflict in Northern Ireland. Working with all the political parties to the conflict, he convened the Amherst Conference on Northern Ireland (Massachusetts, 1975), the Airlie House Conference (Virginia, 1985), and co–convened the Arniston Conference with the government of South Africa (Western Cape, 1997).
In 1992, he participated in bringing some of the South African figures to Boston, Massachusetts for a meeting with representatives of the factions in Northern Ireland. In 1996, he helped arrange a second such meeting, in Belfast, attended by South Africans Cyril Ramaphosa of the African National Congress and Roelf Meyer of the white National Party.
In 1997, the Arniston Conference (also known as The Great Indaba) convened all the key parties of The Northern Irish peace process in South Africa to meet with Nelson Mandela. Included in the meeting from Northern Ireland were Martin McGuinness, David Trimble and Peter Robinson.
"The outcome of the Indaba (the Zulu word for "gathering of the minds") was a series of historic events. Seven weeks after the conference, Sinn Féin declared a cease fire that paved the way for negotiations and ultimately the fragile Good Friday Agreement to share power, still in place today. A year later, Trimble and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, were awarded the Nobel prize for peace. And most recently, in fall 2001, the IRA mustered the courage to destroy its weapons to further the cause of peace. That stunning announcement came two weeks after Gerry Adams of Sinn Féin once again visited former president Mandela in South Africa." [3]
O'Malley was also a member of the Opshal Commission, which authored the report "Northern Ireland: A Citizens' Inquiry" (Belfast, 1993).
Between 1989 and 1999, O'Malley conducted 2,000 hours of interviews tracking South Africa's transition to democracy. His work is archived in written transcription and on audio tape at the Robben Island Museum/Mayibuye Archives [University of the Western Cape]. His assiduous work of recording the different perspectives and developing attitudes within South Africa during the ten-year period had earned Nelson Mandela's highest regard. What particularly impressed Mr. Mandela was O'Malley's determination to face the greatest challenge posed once upon a time by W.B. Yeats, namely 'to hold in a single thought reality and justice'.
In 2007, based on his philosophy that cultures in conflict are in the best position to help other cultures in conflict, O'Malley became involved in working toward reconciliation within Iraq. [4] He helped arrange a conference at a resort in Finland, where 16 Iraqis met senior negotiators from South Africa (SA), including Cyril Ramaphosa, chief negotiator for the African National Congress (ANC) under the leadership of Nelson Mandela; Roelf Meyer, chief negotiator for South Africa's last whites-only government and Mac Maharaj, who was co. secretary of the South African negotiating process. Senior negotiators from Northern Ireland (NI), including Martin McGuinness from Sinn Féin, currently Deputy First Minister of NI, Jeffrey Donaldson from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
O'Malley's role included recruiting the Iraqi participants, then roaming around Baghdad with $40,000 in cash and covertly procuring their airline tickets. [5] The Iraqis concluded the meeting by agreeing among themselves on a statement based partly on the Mitchell Principles developed during the Northern Ireland peace process. The Boston Globe reported:
There would be two meetings, Helsinki I and Helsinki II. "The participants in what O'Malley calls "Helsinki II" are an even more senior influential group than those who drafted the Helsinki principles. They include senior members of parliament and prominent tribal leaders. Among them is the head of the Iraqi Constitutional Review Committee, Sheik Humam Hamoudi, whose participation was endorsed by the speaker of the Iraqi parliament. The ethnic representation of the 36 at the meeting roughly reflects that of the Iraqi population, with 25 percent Sunni, 25 percent Kurdish, and 50 percent Shi'ite participation." [6]
O'Malley founded and is the Founding Director of the Forum for Cities in Transition, [7] which brings together representatives from divided societies around the world. "Its guiding principle is that one divided society is in the best position to help another." [8] Annual conferences were held from 2009 to 2013 with representatives from 15 cities.
O'Malley is the Founding Director of GAME, [9] an organization of Muslim youth representatives from cities across Europe. It was started with an inaugural conference on October 17, 2017, at the Kippure Estate / Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation, where 48 young Muslims from 12 countries wrote a charter of rights for young Muslims. GAME's mission is "to redress the false perceptions of Islam and challenge islamophobia through public forums, communal exchanges, education and dialogue." [10]
At the University of Massachusetts Boston, he is the John Joseph Moakley Professor of International Peace and Reconciliation at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Center for Development and Democracy. He is also a visiting professor of Political Studies at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa.
He founded and edits the New England Journal of Public Policy, [11] a semiannual publication of the McCormack Graduate School. [12]
He is also a frequent contributor to The Boston Globe. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]
O'Malley has monitored elections in South Africa, Mozambique, and the Philippines on behalf of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.
He has owned the Plough and Stars pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts since the early 1970s. His brother Peter O'Malley, with DeWitt Henry, started the renowned literary magazine Ploughshares there, [18] publishing it at first, out of the back of the bar.[ citation needed ]
O'Malley was honored with the Peace Abbey Foundation Courage of Conscience Award at the Community Church of Boston in 2018 for playing a major role in breaking the gridlock and promoting peace in South Africa, Northern Ireland, and the Middle East. [19]
He is the subject of the 2016 documentary, The Peacemaker. [20] [21]
John Hume was an Irish nationalist politician in Northern Ireland and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A founder and leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party, Hume served in the Northern Ireland Parliament; the Northern Ireland Assembly including, in 1974, its first power-sharing executive; the European Parliament and the United Kingdom Parliament. Seeking an accommodation between Irish nationalism and Ulster unionism, and soliciting American support, he was both critical of British government policy in Northern Ireland and opposed to the republican embrace of "armed struggle". In their 1998 citation, the Norwegian Nobel Committee recognised Hume as an architect of the Good Friday Agreement. For himself, Hume wished to be remembered as having been, in his earlier years, a pioneer of the credit union movement.
On 12 October 1984 the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) attempted to assassinate members of the British government, including the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, England. Five people were killed, including the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry; more than thirty people were injured. Thatcher was uninjured. The bombing was a key moment in the Troubles, the conflict in Northern Ireland between unionists and republicans over the constitutional position of Northern Ireland, which took place between the late 1960s and 1998.
A ceasefire, also spelled cease fire, is a stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions, often due to mediation by a third party. Ceasefires may be between state actors or involve non-state actors.
The Downing Street Declaration was a joint declaration issued on 15 December 1993 by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, John Major, and the Irish Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds, at the British Prime Minister's office in 10 Downing Street.
William Joseph Kelly (1943-2023) was an American artist, humanist and human-rights advocate who lived and worked in Australia and the United States.
Monica Mary McWilliams is a Northern Irish academic, peace activist, human rights defender and former politician.
The apartheid system in South Africa was ended through a series of bilateral and multi-party negotiations between 1990 and 1993. The negotiations culminated in the passage of a new interim Constitution in 1993, a precursor to the Constitution of 1996; and in South Africa's first non-racial elections in 1994, won by the African National Congress (ANC) liberation movement.
Alexander Reid was an Irish Catholic priest noted for his facilitator role in the Northern Ireland peace process, a role BBC journalist Peter Taylor subsequently described as "absolutely critical" to its success.
Amy Elizabeth Biehl was a Fulbright Scholar and American graduate of Stanford University and an anti-Apartheid activist in South Africa who was murdered by a black mob shouting anti-white slurs at her in Cape Town. The four men convicted of her murder were granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The Elders is an international non-governmental organisation of public figures noted as senior statesmen, peace activists and human rights advocates, who were brought together by Nelson Mandela in 2007. They describe themselves as "independent global leaders working together for peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet". The goal Mandela set for The Elders was to use their "almost 1,000 years of collective experience" to work on solutions for seemingly insurmountable problems such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, and poverty, as well as to "use their political independence to help resolve some of the world's most intractable conflicts".
The African National Congress (ANC) has been the governing party of the Republic of South Africa since 1994. The ANC was founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein and is the oldest liberation movement in Africa.
Tony D'Arcy was a senior leader in the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who died as a result of a 52 day Hunger-strike at the age of 32.
The Native Labour Act, 1953 was a South African law that formed part of the apartheid system of racial segregation in South Africa. The effect of the law was to prohibit strike action by black Africans.
The Forum for Peace and Reconciliation was a forum established by the government of Ireland in October 1994 as part of the Northern Ireland peace process.
Ephraim Isaac is an Ethiopian scholar of ancient Ethiopian Semitic languages and of African and Ethiopian civilizations. He is the director of the Institute of Semitic Studies based in Princeton, NJ. and the chair of the board of the Ethiopian Peace and Development Center.
Reconciliation theology or the theology of reconciliation raises crucial theological questions about how reconciliation can be brought into regions of political conflict. The term differs from the conventional theological understanding of reconciliation, but likewise emphasises themes of justice, truth, forgiveness and repentance.
Raymond Helmick, SJ was an American Jesuit, peacemaker, theologian and author. Helmick worked as a professor at Boston College and the Boston Theological Institute. Helmick travelled around the world as an emissary for peace. Helmick founded the US Interreligious Committee for Peace in the Middle East.
Michael Cassidy, is a South African Christian leader, evangelist, writer and founder of Africa Enterprise, known for his initiatives at ecumenism, and reconciliation on personal, church and political levels.
Jack "Sean" McNeela was a senior member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) from Ballycroy, County Mayo, Ireland. McNeela was one of 22 Irish republicans who died on hunger-strike. As a young man, McNeela was an athlete in County Mayo and participated in Gaelic games. He came from a family of four brothers and two sisters. His brother Paddy was also active in the IRA and held the position of Quartermaster general in Dublin.
Operation Vula was a secret domestic programme of the African National Congress (ANC) during the final years of apartheid in South Africa. Initiated in 1986 at the ANC headquarters in Lusaka and launched in South Africa in 1988, its operatives infiltrated weapons and banned ANC leaders into the country, in order to establish an underground network linking domestic activist structures with the ANC in exile. It was responsible for facilitating the only direct line of communication between ANC headquarters and Nelson Mandela, who at the time was imprisoned and was discussing a negotiated settlement with the government on the ANC's behalf. The operation was disbanded in 1990, after its existence had been publicly revealed and eight of its leaders charged under the Internal Security Act with terrorism and plotting an armed insurrection.
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