Navigating the Fallout: The US-Ireland Dynamic Post-Brexit with Mary Murphy

Allen House at UMass Lowell on Solomont Way

Historically, the US has played a role in helping to moderate and mediate the conflict in Northern Ireland. In the period after the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the US continued to support the evolving peace process. In 2016 however, the Brexit vote challenged the status quo and stability in Northern Ireland. In addition, it created tensions between the unionist and nationalist communities there and resulted in a souring of relations between Britain and Ireland, and the UK and EU. In reaction to these developments, a number of key US political figures and diaspora organizations made interventions before and during the Brexit negotiations. This talk will analyze the effect of US lobbying/leverage in this instance and discuss what role the US can continue to play in the post-Brexit period to further support peace, stability and prosperity on the island of Ireland.

BIOGRAPHY of Mary Murphy

Mary C. Murphy joined Boston College in Fall 2024. She is a Full Professor in the Political Science Faculty and Director of the Irish Institute at Boston College. Her latest book, co-authored with Jonathan Evershed, A Troubled Constitutional Future: Northern Ireland after Brexit, Agenda/Columbia University Press 2022, won the UACES Best Book Prize in 2023. Mary is also the author of two other monographs on Northern Ireland and the EU, and has guest edited special issues of Irish Political Studies, Administration and Irish Studies in International Affairs (forthcoming). Her work has been published in leading academic journals including The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, International Political Science Review and Territory, Politics, Governance. 

Before joining the faculty at Boston College, she was Head of the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland. She is the former President of the Irish Association for Contemporary European Studies, has twice been awarded an Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Chair award and holds a fellowship with the Centre on Constitutional Change at Edinburgh University. She was also previously a Fulbright-Schuman scholar and has won the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI) Teaching and Learning Prize.

This event is part of the 2024 Lowell City of Learning Festival, which is a project under the fiscal sponsorship of the Greater Lowell Community Foundation.

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