The event took place on Friday 8 December at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin.  

It was opened by the Mitchell Institute Director Professor Richard English and featured a conversation between Sam McBride, Northern Ireland Editor at the Belfast Telegraph, with DUP founder-member, Wallace Thompson.  

Discussion included topics such as unionist politics, faith, identity, the state of the union, Brexit, and the possibility of a border poll. Drawing on his lifetime experience, Wallace Thompson provided an insight into his adolescence in the 1960s and the civil unrest at that time, and the role and influence of Ian Paisley in shaping his future. 

Commenting on this latest event, Professor English said: “The Mitchell Institute was again delighted to be working in partnership with the RIA and Notre Dame, to sustain this series of valuable conversations, and to promote honest and constructive dialogue.” 

The Conversations on Britishness and Irishness Series was established earlier this year, 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. 

The Conversations on Britishness and Irishness Series was launched at Queen’s on 31 January 2023, with Dame Arlene Foster and former Taoiseach and Honorary Professor of Practice at the Mitchell Institute, Bertie Ahern.  

Read more on the latest event here, and the previous first, second and third events.  

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Media enquiries to Zara McBrearty at Queen's Communications Office on email: z.mcbrearty@qub.ac.uk