Peace heroines: ‘We wanted women to have a strong voice in the peace talks, but we wanted more than that’

Among so many men, there were also women.

In 1998, among the parties at the table for the negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement was the newly formed Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, a groundbreaking party that rejected traditional divisions and instead brought together women from both unionist and nationalist backgrounds on the basis of their common concerns.

“We wanted women to have a strong voice in the peace talks, but we wanted more than that,” wrote Monica McWilliams, one of the founders of the Women’s Coalition, in her autobiography.

“We wanted a process reflective of, and fit for, a divided society in which women – unionist and nationalist, loyalist and republican, or neither – could see themselves.

Majority of people in Northern Ireland say Belfast Agreement needs reform

---

Biden’s visit to Ireland aimed at marking Good Friday Agreement but it is also a very personal one

---

Putting peace on the right track: the Peace Train and civil society in Northern Ireland

---

“We intended to be cross-class, all-age and to be able to identify and put forward issues that would otherwise be overlooked.”

McWilliams is one of the “Peace Heroines”, 30 women whose contribution to peace in Northern Ireland is celebrated in a touring exhibition to mark the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement.

Put together by Herstory in partnership with National Museums NI and the Department of Foreign Affairs Reconciliation Fund, the exhibition includes new portraits of nine of the peace heroines by the visual artist FRIZ and an education programme to teach young people on both sides of the Border about women’s contribution to peace.

“The role of women in the Northern Ireland peace process is a key United Nations case study,” said Herstory chief executive and project co-ordinator, Melanie Lynch.

But, she said, “this essential story is not taught on the official school curriculum in Northern Ireland or the Republic.

“Our Peace Heroines project aims to change that and introduce students and the public to these legendary activists and inspire the next generation of peace-builders.

“It’s time to write herstory into history.”

[ ‘We’re not being shot or blown up. That doesn’t mean we have peace’ ]

Celebrating women including Bridget Bond, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Inez McCormack, Mo Mowlam, Baroness May Blood and Pat Hume, the exhibition highlights women who have made a difference from grassroots level to government, as well as the long tradition in the North of women setting aside religious differences to work together on common issues such as housing, education and trade unionism.

It also explores the power of partnerships such as the Peace People, Derry Peace Women and the “special dynamic” created between the Shankill and Falls women’s centres in Belfast and through the leadership of Eileen Weir and Susan McCrory.

Launched at Stormont last year on the International Day of Peace, the exhibition has so far been on tour on both sides of the Border and in London and the United States; in April, it will go on display at Leinster House, Queen’s University Belfast and the United Nations in New York to mark the 25th anniversary of the agreement.

Last month, President Michael D Higgins hosted a special display of the Peace Heroines exhibition at Áras an Uachtaráin and paid tribute to the “important and emancipatory contribution” of women to peace in the North.

In his address, he spoke of an “obligation to work towards the goal of moving peace from paper to experience, to the texture of lives lived that carry the remembered experience of terrible loss, cruelty, humiliation and indifference.

“This can only be done with the inclusion of women at the core of every step of this process, their voices, their rich experiences and their expertise,” he said.

“Let us celebrate then the great contribution that women have made, to building and sustaining peace, to inclusion, equality and sustainable society and economy, and let us commit to working together to build on this progress, helping to end all forms of discrimination and inequality on an island at peace.”