To watch a taped video stream of Gerry Adams’ talk (approximately 1hour, 10 minutes in length), click here:(broadband) http://streaming.nd.edu/opac/newsinfo/adams.wmv (modem) http://streaming.nd.edu/opac/newsinfo/adams_low.wmv p. Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the political party that seeks the reunification of Ireland, will discuss the Irish peace process in a speech in Washington Hall at the University of Notre Dame at 5 p.m. March 16.
Sponsored by the Keough Institute for Irish Studies, the event is free and open to the public. * Tickets for reserved seating in Washington Hall have all been distributed as of March 10. There will be unreserved seating still available in Washington Hall plus closed circuit television in the ballroom of the LaFortune Student Center. *
Adams, who will be making his first visit to Notre Dame, represents West Belfast as a member of the British Parliament and serves the same district as a member of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly established under the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. He has published several books of political analysis, fiction and memoir. His most recent book is “A Farther Shore: Ireland’s Long Road to Peace” (Random House, 2003).
A key figure in the initiation of the Irish peace process, Adams oversaw the first interventions in electoral politics by Irish republicans, beginning in the early 1980s. Against a backdrop of British censorship and sectarian violence, Sinn Fein achieved some electoral success. Adams himself survived an assassination attempt in 1984.
A dialogue with John Hume, leader of the rival Social Democrat and Labour Party, led to a series of exchanges with the Irish and British governments and ultimately a ceasefire by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) in August, 1994. Adams subsequently participated in the protracted negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement, endorsed by a majority of the people of Ireland, north and south. Endangered by new tensions, the agreement is now being reviewed by the British and Irish governments.
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