Former US Senator George Mitchell to make special Mayo visit

FORMER US Senator George Mitchell will give the Mary Robinson Centre Fourth International Human Rights Lecture on Thursday next, April 27, in Ballina.

The venue is St. Patrick’s Church, Convent Hill, at 2 p.m.

Prior to the lecture, Mr. Mitchell and Mary Robinson will meet the media.

Mitchell played an active role in the Northern Ireland peace process in the late 1990s, having served as the United States Special Envoy for Northern Ireland under President Bill Clinton.

He first led a commission that established the principles on non-violence to which all parties in Northern Ireland had to adhere and subsequently chaired the all-party peace negotiations, which led to the Belfast Peace Agreement signed on Good Friday 1998 (known since as the 'Good Friday Agreement').

Mitchell's personal intervention with the parties was crucial to the success of the talks.