Living History by Unknown (best non fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

founded the Women’s Information Drop-in Center in 1987 after her seventeen-year-old son was shot dead by Protestant gunmen. She had lost more than a dozen family members to violence. Joyce and other women had set up the center as a safe house: a place for women of both religions to convene and talk over their needs and fears. Unemployment was high, and both Catholic and Protestant women worried about young people in the community who had nothing to do. The nine women sitting around the table described how frightened and worried they were when their sons and husbands left the house and how relieved they were when they arrived safely back home. “It takes women to bring men to their senses,”

Joyce said.

These women hoped that the cease-fire would continue and that the violence would end once and for all. They poured tea from ordinary stainless steel teapots, and when I remarked how well they kept the tea warm, Joyce insisted I take a pot to remember them by. I used that dented teapot every day in our small family kitchen at the White House. When Joyce died shortly after our visit, I was honored to be asked to return to Belfast in 1997 to deliver the first Joyce McCartan Memorial Lecture at the University of Ulster. I brought the teapot with me and put it on the podium as I spoke of the courage of Irish women like Joyce who, at kitchen tables and over pots of tea, had helped chart a path to peace.

From Belfast, we helicoptered on Marine One to Derry along the coast of Northern Ireland. Derry is the home of John Hume, one of the architects of the peace process who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with David Trimble, the leader of the largest Protestant party, the Ulster Unionist Party. A large rumpled man with a kind face and silver tongue, Hume was the leader of the SDLP, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, founded in 1970 to push for a peaceful resolution to the Troubles. He had been on the front lines of nonviolence and reconciliation for decades, and Bill wanted to acknowledge, in Hume’s community, the personal risk he had taken for peace. Chanting, “We want Bill, we want Bill,” tens of thousands thronged the streets in the freezing cold to roar their approval of Bill and America, and I was filled with pride and respect for my husband.

Another huge crowd awaited us at the City Hall when we returned to Belfast for the Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. A young naval steward accompanying the President surveyed the sea of faces. “These people all look the same,” he said. “Why have they been killing each other?”

I stood before the crowd and read excerpts from letters written by children expressing their hopes for a lasting peace. Then Bill, with two young letter writers at his side, threw the switch that illuminated the lights on the Christmas tree. He, too, spoke of hope and peace, and he told everyone assembled at this festive gathering that our day in Belfast and in Derry and Londonderry County would long be with us as one of the most remarkable of our lives. I wholeheartedly agreed.

We ended the evening at a reception at Queens University sponsored by the English Secretary for Northern Ireland, Sir Patrick Mayhew, and attended by representatives of the various factions. Many had been in the same room together only once before, when they came to the White House to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day the previous March. At the Belfast gathering, the Catholic leadership stood near the band, while the Protestants clung to the opposite side of the room. Ian Paisley, the hardcore Protestant leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, made an appearance but wouldn’t shake hands with the “papists.”

Like fundamentalists everywhere, he seemed stuck in a time warp, unwilling to concede a new reality.

The next morning we flew to Ireland’s capital, Dublin. Since the early 19gos Ireland had been referred to by economists as the “Celtic Tiger” because of explosive economic growth and a new prosperity that was actually bringing Irish immigrants back home. Bill had appointed Jean Kennedy Smith, President Kennedy’s sister, as Ambassador to Ireland in 1993, and she was doing a terrific job. In Dublin, we paid an official courtesy call on Mary Robinson, the first female President of Ireland, at her official residence, Aras an Uachtarain. President Robinson and her husband, Nick, down-to-earth and easy to talk to, were committed to the Irish peace process and eager to hear about Belfast and Derry. She showed us a light that is kept burning in the front window to welcome anyone Irish who, having left Ireland, finds the way home.

From there I went to the National Gallery to address the women of the north and south of Ireland. In a speech carried live on national Irish television, I praised the bravery of Irish women who had stood up for peace. I joked about the Irish television personality who had recently welcomed a group of women lawmakers to his show by asking, “Who’s minding the children?” I smiled and said, “I long for the day when men are asked the same question.” Debate raged in Ireland about what choices women should be “allowed”

to make, especially in the realm of family life. A week earlier, the Irish had narrowly passed a referendum legalizing divorce over vigorous opposition from the Roman Catholic Church. The women attending the event knew very well that despite the progress women had made economically, politically and socially, many obstacles remained.

I met up with Bill at the Bank of Ireland next to the College Green of Trinity University, where we spent time with Bono and other members of the band U2, who have since become friends. Bill and I have worked with Bono on the global issues he champions, debt relief for poor countries and more resources to fight HIV/AIDS. When we walked onto the stage constructed for Bill’s speech, I gasped. There were probably