The Mitchell Institute co-hosted the latest public discussion in the Conversations on Britishness and Irishness Series on 12 November 2024, at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.  This event featured Judith Gillespie in conversation with Mitchell Institute Director, Professor Richard English.

In a wide ranging discussion, they explored a range of topics including Judith’s upbringing and career pathways within the police force and her roles since retiring, including being involved in the NI Working Group on Mother and Baby Homes and learning the Irish language.

Judith discussed her childhood and experience as a young adult during the most incandescent years of The Troubles.  She reflected on the challenges she faced during her career, as one of the few women to join the police force in the 1980s and later in her career, as the first female Chief Officer for the newly established Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) under The Good Friday Agreement, bringing in a new era in policing, including the recruitment and integration of Catholics and women into the police force.  Discussion also focused on the Garda Síochána reforms initiative, in which Judith was a founding member from 2015-2000.

The Conversations on Britishness and Irishness Series was established in 2023, as a way of facilitating open and respectful discussion about cultural and political identities in and relating to Ireland.

The series forms part of the Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South (ARINS) initiative – a partnership between The Royal Irish Academy and the Keough Naughton Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame, to generate authoritative, independent and non-partisan research and analysis on a range of important issues for contemporary Ireland. 

Read more here.

 

Previous events in the series include:

October 2024 – Dame Louise Richardson in conversation with Professor Richard English

June 2023 - Lord Peter Weir of Ballyholme in conversation with Mr Declan Kearney MLA, chaired by Dr Mary C. Murphy, Jean Monnet Professor in European Integration, University College Cork.

May 2023 - Doug Beattie MLA, Ulster Unionist Party, Joanna Cherry MP, Scottish National Party and Claire Hanna MP, Social Democratic and Labour Party, in conversation, chaired by Professor Cathy Gormley-Heenan, University Provost, Ulster University.

January 2023 - Dame Arlene Foster in conversation with former Taoiseach and Honorary Professor of Practice at the Mitchell Institute, Bertie Ahern, chaired by William Crawley, Journalist and Broadcaster.