Belfast To Baltimore: What Can America Learn From Northern Ireland?

What does the current turmoil in American cities over racial justice, policing and inequality have in common with the sectarian conflicts that for decades separated Protestant Loyalists and Catholic Nationalists in Northern Ireland? And what can American communities learn from the peace and reconciliation process there?

Recently, WFYI sat down with Rev. Dr. Harold Good, an Irish Methodist leader who was instrumental in reaching the Good Friday (Belfast) Peace Agreement, and Frank Thomas, a professor of Homiletics and Director of the Academy of Preaching and Celebration at Christian Theological Seminary. Through his work at the Corrymeela Community, a center of reconciliation, Good brought together warring paramilitary and political factions to find common understanding. Good earned a Master’s degree at CTS in 1966. He says that his time living and working in the United States during the civil rights-era 1960s helped him better understand the sectarian violence in his own country.

Good and Thomas spoke with WFYI’s Michelle Johnson.