Geraldine Smyth

Geraldine Smyth OP is a theologian and educator in Ecumenics, working in academic, civic and church settings. Graduate studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics were followed by a PhD on WCC’s Conciliar Process for Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, (Trinity College Dublin, 1992) and continuing theological collaboration with the WCC in areas of ecclesiology and ethics. She was coordinator of the Opsahl Commission (1993-1994), developing dialogue processes and ecumenical initiatives amid intractable violence in and about Northern Ireland in church and society. She served in her Dominican Order in international leadership roles, and is Adjunct Associate Professor at Irish School of Ecumenics, Trinity College Dublin having been twice its Director. She has collaborated with global research initiatives, e.g., linked to the UN’s research on the impact of trauma on children in conflict and the promotion of “peaceful childhoods”; and with scholars from Korea on the constructive role of memory in civic peacebuilding. She is a board member of Healing Through Remembering, (Northern Ireland), and involved in interdisciplinary and international initiatives of post-conflict bridgebuilding and identities in transformation. She writes and broadcasts on the imperative of partnership in overcoming legacies of violence, reconciling divided theological histories, and elucidating an ecumenical ecclesiology of truth and mercy, justice and peace.