On December 7, 1998, a special John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award was presented to eight political leaders of Northern Ireland and the American chairman of the peace talks in recognition of the extraordinary political courage they demonstrated in negotiating the historic Good Friday Peace Agreement in April 1998. The presentation of the Profile in Courage Award to a … [Read more...] about Profiles in Courage Awards
Good Friday Peace Agreement
Good Friday and Us
I wonder if we are, as novelist Salman Rushdie has written, at the deepest level of our nature, “frontier-crossing beings.” Is it part of an innate desire to step across borders, and by doing so enter into places that can be disorienting or even dangerous? If that is so, are we not wall-builders as well, determined to keep at bay the foreign, the invader, and the … [Read more...] about Good Friday and Us
Listen Now Again
A new National Library of Ireland exhibition celebrating the life and work of Seamus Heaney gives an overview of the poet laureate's life and work. When Seamus Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, the Swedish Academy noted the “lyrical beauty and ethical depth” of his work. His poems, though often suffused with allusions to Dante, Homer, and the other … [Read more...] about Listen Now Again