PULLMAN, Wash.—As a young man in Northern Ireland, Jon McCourt joined the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in 1969, intent on promoting civil rights on his home soil. On what became known as “Bloody Sunday,” Jan. 30, 1972, in his hometown of Derry/Londonderry, he narrowly escaped death when an armed British soldier stared him down then walked away with a shrug; nearby more than a dozen young people had been shot to death that violent day. He left the IRA in the mid-1970s, feeling it had moved too far from its civil rights agenda and was contributing to increased polarization and sectarianism. McCourt has become a community peace activist in the years since, working with victims of violence, community relations, and youth in criminalized areas.
On Tuesday, Oct. 28, McCourt is traveling to Washington State University to share his experiences at two events; the public is invited to both at no charge.
He will discuss “From Bullets to the Peace Process: The Transformation of the IRA” at noon in the Foley Speaker’s Room, 308 Bryan Hall, as part of the Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service’s “Coffee and Politics” discussion series.
That evening, at 7 p.m. in the Compton Union Building (CUB) Auditorium, he will present the eleventh V. N. Bhatia Lecture hosted by the WSU Honors College. The presentation is titled “Bloody Sunday and Beyond: The Troubles in Northern Ireland.”
McCourt is a guest lecturer for Honors’ Irish study-abroad summer experiences.
Co-sponsors of his WSU visit are the Honors College, the Foley Institute, and the Office of Undergraduate Education.
Perspective
The Troubles is a name used to describe Irish clashes across centuries. Most recently, the term refers to disputes—often violent and largely political—starting in the 1960s between Northern Ireland’s nationalist/Catholic community and its unionist British/Protestant community. The Troubles carried over into the southern Republic of Ireland, England, and other countries; tallies over three decades indicate more than 3,500 deaths occurred then as well as dozens of injuries, shootings, armed robberies, and bombings.
Bloody Sunday is regarded as one of the most significant events in the recent Troubles due to the number of casualties and the nature of the incident between Northern Ireland locals and British military.
Topics Fitting for V.N. Bhatia Lecture
The Bhatia Lecture honors the late V.N. “Vic” Bhatia, who led the then Honors Program from the early 1960s into the early 1990s, and who was very involved in international education at WSU. Previous Bhatia lecturers have included a U.S. ambassador and Honors alumna, educators, leaders of higher education associations, a Danish foreign minister, and a poet and novelist.
“Mr. McCourt’s visit presents a unique opportunity for WSU students, faculty, staff, and the community to hear first-hand what is was like to be part of a civil conflict, and how that changed his perspective on life,” says M. Grant Norton, dean of the WSU Honors College.
“Whilst his IRA activities took place during complicated times of political and ethnic turbulence in his country, Mr. McCourt learned valuable lessons and developed insights and philosophies that are applicable to any number of national and international clashes taking place today. We are very pleased that Honors faculty member Matt Carroll suggested Mr. McCourt to present the Bhatia Lecture.”
McCourt and Carroll’s Students
Carroll, an award-winning natural resource sociologist who studies the human dimension of natural disasters such as wildfires, teaches Honors courses and leads their summer study abroad experiences in Ireland. He has known McCourt for some time; in Derry, McCourt takes Carroll’s students on walking tours to Bloody Sunday locations while describing his experiences that day. Carroll was a Fulbright Fellow in 2006 and studied local responses to afforestation in Ireland. He is on faculty in the School of the Environment in the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences.
Reinforces Foley Institute Mission
“Speaker Thomas S. Foley was a staunch advocate of the peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland,” says Richard Elgar, assistant director of the Foley Institute, “and he was particularly proud of his Irish ancestry. Having Mr. McCourt visit WSU and the Foley Institute is something that he would have appreciated, and it also fits in well with the institute’s foci on both public affairs programming and research on public policy and political institutions.”
For more information, visit http://Honors.wsu.edu and http://Foley.wsu.edu.
MEDIA: M. Grant Norton, Dean of the WSU Honors College, 509-335-4505, mg_norton@wsu.edu
Richard Elgar, Assistant Director of WSU’s Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Public Service, 509-335-3477, relgar@wsu.edu
Peggy Perkins, Assistant to the Dean, WSU Honors College, 509-335-4507, perkins@wsu.edu