A Peace of My Mind

**This episode includes two separate interviews.**

Alastair Kilgore is a Northern Irish educator, peacebuilder, and longtime member of the Corrymeela Community, where he has been involved for more than fifty years. Raised in the Protestant tradition, Kilgore has dedicated much of his life to fostering understanding across religious, political, and cultural divides in Northern Ireland.

Inspired by Corrymeela founder Ray Davey, whose e...

For most of the world, Nell McCafferty was a pioneering journalist, feminist, civil rights activist, and one of Ireland's most fearless public voices. For Carmel McCafferty and her daughter Muire McCallion, she was simply "our Nell."

Carmel is Nell McCafferty's youngest sister, one of six siblings raised in a modest three-bedroom home in Derry's Bogside. 

Muire, Carmel's daughter, grew up knowing Nell as the adventurous aunt who...

Patricia Moore is a community activist and longtime Sinn Féin member from Derry, Northern Ireland, whose life has been shaped by the Troubles and the subsequent peace process. Raised in Derry during some of the most violent years of the conflict, she experienced military raids, street violence, and the daily realities of a divided society from an early age. At 17, she became involved in republican politics and later spent more than...

Paul McLaughlin is an educator, historian, community leader, and lifelong resident of Derry, Northern Ireland. Growing up during the Troubles, Paul's earliest memory is witnessing the day of Bloody Sunday as a six-year-old child, an experience that profoundly shaped his understanding of conflict, identity, and justice. Rather than following many of his peers into the violence that engulfed Northern Ireland, he found purpose through...

Mark Durkan has spent much of his life navigating Northern Ireland 's difficult path from conflict to peace. A native of Derry, he was deeply involved in the negotiations and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement, later serving as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and as a member of Parliament.

Throughout his career, Mark has championed the idea that peace is more than a political settlement. While agreements can creat...

Martina Anderson is a lifelong Irish republican, former political prisoner, and veteran political leader from Derry’s Bogside. Arrested in the early years of the Troubles, she spent nearly fourteen years in prison, including a decade in England, before her release under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

Following her release, Anderson unexpectedly found herself in public office, serving as a member of the Northern Ireland Ass...

Chris McDonough is a community development worker based in the Fountain/Bishop Street interface area of Derry, where he works to bridge divides between Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods through peacebuilding, regeneration, and youth engagement. 

Raised in a family shaped by both nationalist and republican traditions, Chris combines deep knowledge of Northern Ireland’s history with a practical commitment to reconciliat...

Shelley Cowan is a disability advocate, speaker, and founder of Justus, a community organization creating inclusive social spaces and opportunities for adults with disabilities across Northern Ireland. After becoming severely ill at age fifteen, Shelley spent more than a decade confined to bed, unable to walk, eat independently, or continue her education. Through years of determination, family support, and rehabilitation, she gradu...

Martina Byrne is a community builder and quiet changemaker rooted in Hilltown, County Down. Originally trained in marine biology and business development, Martina’s path shifted after becoming a mother, when she experienced firsthand the isolation that can exist in rural life. Rather than wait for connection, she created it.

As a co-founder of a local women’s group that has now thrived for more than a decade, Martina has...

Vincenta Leyden lives in Hilltown, County Down, Northern Ireland, near the Mourne Mountains. Born in Northern Ireland and raised partly in the Republic of Ireland, her life has unfolded along the border between two places and identities. Growing up during the Troubles, she experienced the conflict not through dramatic moments but through the everyday realities of living in a divided society. Those experiences shaped her curiosity a...

Nula McNulty is a lifelong resident of North Leitrim, Ireland, who returned home in 2003 after years working on Ireland’s east coast and two years in China as a food technologist. Raised on a mixed farm near the Northern Ireland border, she grew up during the Troubles with a father from the North and a mother from the South. Her upbringing instilled in her a strong sense of inclusivity, social conscience, and respect for othe...

Two stories again in this episode:

Carmel Loughlin grew up in the Republic of Ireland but spent time crossing the border frequently to visit family in the North, until the Troubles broke out when she was about 12 years old. She has spent much of her career in mental health, helping people navigate the ongoing challenges and lingering effects of the violence.

Lauri McCusker works in community development in an effort to make life ...

In this episode we share two conversations with people we met in Manorhamilton in the Republic of Ireland, just across the border from Northern Ireland. Like so many things, conflict and tensions are not confined within a political line that is drawn on the map.

Gerry Creamer is the youngest of five children. He grew up in a traditional and  devoutly Catholic family in the Republic of Ireland, close to the border with the North...

Israel Eguaogie was 17 when he left Nigeria and relocated to Germany as an asylum seeker. A decade later he moved to Dublin and soon after that, shifted north to Belfast. It was a decision that horrified his mother back in Nigeria, who had heard news reports of the sectarian violence in the country. But Israel said that he experienced the calm and the peace of Northern Ireland and recalled it was the first place since living in Ger...

Lewis Lyttle is an ex-Loyalist prisoner. He was sentenced to 15 years for attempted murder during The Troubles and was released early, with the signing of The Good Friday Agreement. 

Now Lewis works to facilitate cross-community groups with Black Mountain Shared Space, a community center built on the site of a former peace wall and designed to bring people from both Protestant and Catholic communities together to get to know on...

Bronagh McAtasney is the daughter of John Bosco McAtasney, a master weaver and the last hand loom weaver in Ireland. She recalls his curiosity, his desire to learn, and his passion to instill the same in his children. When he passed away in 2018, Bronagh used her small inheritance to leave her job in administration, go back to school for a master’s degree in public history and now, in her own words, “I’m actually ...

Aoife Moore is an independent investigative journalist from Derry, Northern Ireland and formerly worked as a political correspondent for the BBC.

She calls herself a victim of England’s legacy in Ireland and says that every facet of her life has been marred by British colonialism, including the death of her uncle in the violence of Bloody Sunday.

Aoife chose her path to become a journalist because of her frustration with the Br...

Jonny Clark is the program manager for Public Theology at Corrymeela, often called Ireland’s oldest peace center.

Born in New Zealand and married to an American, Jonny has lived in Northern Ireland for 40 years. When he was growing up, his family moved to Belfast at the heights of The Troubles. As he says, “During a time when most people were not moving to Northern Ireland.”

He has spent time in South Africa, Israel...

Lisa Retezan works as a substance use disorder navigator at a day shelter for youth who are unhoused. She openly shares her story with them about her own struggles with addiction.

Lisa took her first sip of alcohol at age 15 and struggled for much of her life with addiction. Her husband at the time knew, and as Lisa says, "He cleaned up my messes." Her mother knew and begged her to get help, but Lisa wasn't ready.

Eventually the alco...