Ireland: the other side, a Week on Northern Ireland, began on March 18, 2016 with a St. Patrick’s Day Party at Loosey’s Bar and Restaurant in Downtown Gainesville. The event was open to the community and featured several Irish dancing performances with live musicians and a local singer.
Throughout the week, Colm Clarke and Tonya McMullan held one two-day photography workshop with local high school art students and several theatre/performance art workshops with local primary and secondary students.
On March 23rd, Dr. Richard Conley, a UF professor of political science, gave a talk entitled “Legislative Behaviour in the Northern Ireland Assembly, 2007-2011: Conflict and Consensus in a Developing Consociational Democracy” focused on the political institutions designed to prevent future partisan conflict.
On March 24th, Dr. Jessica Harland-Jacobs, a UF professor of history, gave a talk entitled “Ireland, 1916: The Rising and the War” in which she drew attention to the ways in which Irish and Northern Irish participation in World War I war efforts on behalf of the British are often ignored in the discussion of Irish/Northern Irish political history.
The evening of March 24th featured a screening of the film Good Vibrations at the Hippodrome Theatre in Downtown Gainesville. The film depicts how the non-partisan punk rock scene developed in the local record store Good Vibrations in 1970s Belfast despite the surrounding political violence engulfing the city. The film screening was free and open to the public.
The following day, March 25th, visiting professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania Dr. Brendan O’Leary gave a talk entitled “Power-sharing in Deeply Divided Places” in which he drew from his experiences as a political practitioner who acted as a consultant during the Irish peace process to speak about other examples of power-sharing in post-conflict sites.
Finally, on March 26th, Colm Clarke and Tonya McMullan gave their presentation on their experiences in Gainesville at the Harn Museum of Art.
Ireland: the other side was a huge success for the Center in terms of community outreach, event attendance and cohesive programming. Thanks to the efforts of Colm Clarke, Tonya McMullan, Gabrielle Byam – Education Program Coordinator at the Hippodrome, and Melissa Olver – IB Art Teacher at Eastside High School, we were also able to use Center resources to supplement arts education for numerous Gainesville youths.
Ireland: the other side, A Week on Northern Ireland is the first full week’s programming for our Peace Building series and will be followed by a similarly programmed week on the Balkans in Spring 2017.
