THE IRISH PEACE PROCESS:
Hope and History -- Making Peace in Northern Ireland
An Interview and Panel Discussion with Gerry Adams

Press Release

05-31
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7, 2005
Media Contact: Christine A. Somosi: email: csomosi@jcu.edu
Phone: 216-397-4663

John Carroll University to host Irish political leader Gerry Adams
March 18th interview will address The Irish peace process

Cleveland, OH – Gerry Adams, president of the Irish Nationalist Political Party Sinn Féin, will speak at John Carroll University in University Heights at noon on Friday, March 18 in the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center. Adams’ lecture is entitled “The Irish Peace Process – Hope and History – Making Peace in Northern Ireland.”

David C. Barnett, reporter and producer for ideastream, will sit down for a one-on-one interview with Adams about his role in the Irish peace process. The interview will be followed by a question and answer period led by a panel of JCU faculty and students.

Adams is commended for continuing efforts to build a stable, democratically-negotiated peace settlement in Ireland. With John Hume, leader of the Socialist Democratic Labor Party, Adams helped initiate the Irish peace initiative in 1993. This led to major political developments for peace including the Downing Street Declaration, the Joint Framework Document and the Irish Republican Army's announcement of a complete cessation of military operations in 1994. This ultimately led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which was ratified by a clear majority of the people of Ireland – north and south.

Adams’ visit to John Carroll comes during a very tenuous period in the Irish peace process. Sinn Féin almost made a deal to share power with Unionists before Christmas. The deal to establish a power sharing executive broke down because the IRA would not concede to Dr. Ian Paisley’s demand that the arms disposal be photographed. Other events have also strained the process. The Northern Bank heist in Belfast and the death of a Belfast man, allegedly, at the hands of IRA members has intensified the political impasse. There have been serious charges made against Sinn Féin in connection with these recent events. Gerry Adams, speaking as the party leader, said his colleague in the Dail (The Irish Parliament), Mr. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, spoke for republicans across Ireland when he said Sinn Féin rejected criminality of any kind.

Bertie Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach), met on March 3rd with Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss the current crisis in the Northern Irish political process. Ahern said, “Yes, we have had obstacles. We have to find progress to deal with these difficulties. Both Prime Minister Blair and I want to do that.”

Mr. Ahern added, “I think that Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness have worked enormously hard. I understand what they have been trying to do, to keep everybody with them. I think that they have put so much into this process not to see it through, and they are endeavoring to find a comprehensive solution.”

Adams was elected as a member of Parliament from West Belfast in 1983. However, he refused to take his seat in the House of Commons at Westminster in line with the republican tradition.

An author of several books, Adams has written Hope and History: Making Peace in Ireland, A Pathway to Peace, The Politics of Irish Freedom and Selected Writings, which provide expositions of his political thinking; Falls Memories, an autobiographical memoir; Cage Eleven, stories relating to prison experiences; and Before the Dawn, an autobiography.

The doors of the Tony DeCarlo Varsity Center will open at 11 a.m. The Irish band “Tim Benson & Friends” will play prior to the start of the interview. Admittance to this event is by ticket only. For more information or to reserve a seat, visit www.jcu.edu/seegerryadams or call 216-397-1935. Tickets are: $10 for the general public and $5 for John Carroll University community members. John Carroll students will be admitted free of charge.

John Carroll University, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a liberal arts university grounded in the Jesuit, Catholic tradition. The university has some 3,350 plus undergraduates and just over 750 graduate students. The U.S. News & World Report’s 2005 annual college guide ranks John Carroll University among the top five master’s-degree-granting universities in the Midwest and first in graduation/retention rank. Originally founded as St. Ignatius College in 1886, the university was renamed in 1923 to honor America’s first Catholic bishop, John Carroll of Maryland. John Carroll is one of 28 Jesuit colleges and universities located in the United States.

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