Gender & Conflict in Northern Ireland
As a 2009 George J. Mitchell Scholar with the US-Ireland Alliance, I completed a Master of Arts in Peace and Conflict Studies at The University of Ulster, Londonderry, Northern Ireland (2009-2010).
I graduated with distinction, and my thesis research on government and NGO approaches to the prevention of commercial sexual exploitation and the relationship between the introduction of peacekeeping forces to conflict zones and the rise in commercial sexual exploitation was selected for binding in university library.
The Peace & Conflict Studies MA program at University of Ulster involved learning directly from a variety of leaders in the Northern Ireland conflict and studies about it, including Dr. Paul Arthur (bottom left) and politician John Hume, one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process (center).
Mitchell Scholars meeting President McAleese in Dublin (2009).
Explorations of Derry/Londonderry & Northern Ireland
From Heaney’s 1996 collection The Spirit Level, ‘Two Lorries’ uses the sestina form (the words at the ends of the lines in each stanza are the same from one stanza to the next), a difficult form to pull off.
Heaney contrasts two snapshots of lorries, one involving his mother, back in the 1940s, and the other evoking a more recent scene, after Heaney's mother has died, and Ireland has been torn apart by the Troubles.