Northern Ireland Community Relations Council - About Us - Press Releases

14 December 2009

The Community Relations Council today launched its latest research publication ‘The Challenges of Peace’ which summarises 11 research projects conducted under the EU Peace and Reconciliation Programme as a contribution to Peace-Building in Northern Ireland.

The research addresses

The impact and role of sectarianism in everyday life
Rules, rights and codes of conduct for a diverse society
Implementing A Shared Future
Minority ethnic representation in Northern Ireland

The book’s editor, Dr Naomi Doak, commented

‘Essential to the development of peace and reconciliation is an understanding of where we are now in order to move forward. Research and the development of new and innovative strategies which look to the future and consider how the changing demography in our society can help us progress towards a sustainable peace.’

Dr Duncan Morrow, CRC Chief Executive, commented

‘As we reach the fifteenth year of peace processing in Northern Ireland since the IRA and loyalist ceasefires of 1994 peace has proved to be a more complex and difficult process than can be imagined by pictures of former enemies united as leaders of a new dispensation. What this research illustrates is that progress in politics has not put the underlying issues of division and antagonism to bed and that change on this axis will require deliberate and systemic intervention if it is to happen.’

The book is available free of charge from the Community Relations Council and can also be downloaded from the CRC website

http://www.community-relations.org.uk/fs/doc/challenges-of-peace.pdf

For further information contact

Ray Mullan at 90-227500 or email: rmullan@nicrc.org.uk