In memory of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, which former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said would not have been possible without the contributions of 29 women from political and civic society, a celebration was held on Monday.
The Queen’s University Belfast chancellor, Hillary Rodham Clinton, commended the winners of medals and honorary degrees as “determined, unstoppable forces for peace” and worked with the political parties to execute the agreement throughout her tenure as secretary of state.
They included the late Mo Mowlam, Britain’s first female minister for the area, who was actively involved in the negotiations while receiving treatment for a brain tumour, and the women who founded the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, who established their own political party in 1996 in order to take part in the peace talks.
Clinton opened the conference where present and past Irish, British, and EU leaders would talk over the next three days. “A quarter century of bloodshed and strife and millennia of embedded sexism had discouraged most women from being in politics, from being in the arena, but not them,” she said.
To the cheers of the crowd, Clinton said, “Without the women of Northern Ireland, there wouldn’t be a Good Friday agreement to celebrate today.”
A thirty-year conflict between mostly Protestant unionist supporters of British authority and primarily Catholic nationalist opponents was largely resolved by the peace agreement. The settlement was mediated by the former Clinton government in the United States.
Arlene Foster, the first female first minister of Northern Ireland, and Lyra McKee, a journalist who was murdered in 2019 amid an outburst of the still-pervasive episodic violence, were among the other honorees. Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland, also received one.
Avila Killmurray, a co-founder of the Women’s Coalition, remarked during the event, “I was amazed that my name was among such an illustrious group of ladies.”
“However, it’s really nice because I worked primarily with women in local communities and I think very often their contribution over the years doesn’t go recognised enough,” she said.
