Assoc ProfessorMuireann Ní Raghallaigh

I was quoted in this Dublin Inquirer article by Shamim Malekmian

I was cited in this Dublin Inquirer article by Shamim Malekmian about the fears that parents in direct provision have that their children will be taken away by the state. I drew on a study colleagues and I conducted a number of years ago on the needs of refugee children (funded by the Children's Right's Alliance) which suggested the over-involvement that accommodation centre staff have in the lives of residents.

RTE Morning Ireland interview where I spoke about the need for guidance and training for individuals and families hosting Ukrainian refugees

Contribution in relation to Ukrainian refugees arriving in Ireland

Interview in relation to the situation of unaccompanied refugee children arriving in Ireland

Interview focused on the situation of Afghan refugees arriving in Ireland

Chair

In this, the second of UCD Rights Education Network's webinars, we were joined by renowned human rights champion Mary Robinson and author and journalist, Caitriona Palmer, to discuss the power of narrative and story-telling as a means of rights education. Mary Robinson is the author with Caitriona Palmer of Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future. Caitriona is the author of her own personal memoir An Affair with My Mother: A Story of Adoption Secrecy and Love. Speaker Biographies: Mary Robinson is Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice in Trinity College Dublin and Chair of The Elders. She served as President of Ireland from 1990-1997 and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from1997-2002. She is a member of the Club of Madrid and the recipient of numerous honours and awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the President of the United States Barack Obama. Between 2013 and 2016 Mary served as the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy in three roles; first for the Great Lakes region of Africa, then on Climate Change and most recently as his Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate. Her Foundation, the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, established in 2010,came to a planned end in April 2019. A former President of the International Commission of Jurists and former chair of the Council of Women World Leaders she was President and founder of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative from 2002-2010 and served as Honorary President of Oxfam International from 2002-2012. Mary Robinson serves as Patron of the International Science Council and Patron of the Board of the Institute of Human Rights and Business, is an Ambassador for The B Team, in addition to being a board member of several organisations including the Mo Ibrahim Foundation and the Aurora Foundation. She was Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 to 2019. Mary’s memoir, ‘Everybody Matters’ was published in September 2012 and her book, ‘Climate Justice - Hope, Resilience and the Fight for a Sustainable Future’ was published in September 2018. Caitriona Palmer is a freelance journalist living in Washington and has written for the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Echo, the Glasgow Sunday Herald, RTE Radio, BBC, and the Global Radio Network. From 2002 – 2004, Caitriona was the Iran correspondent for the Irish Times based in Tehran. During this time she also filed dispatches for RTE Radio and the BBC and reported from the Kurdish front in northern Iraq during the 2004 Iraq war. Before becoming a journalist, Caitriona worked in human rights, specializing in war- related missing person cases. She worked in post-war Bosnia for Physicians for Human Rights, an American non-profit tasked with identifying the dead of the Srebrenica massacre. In 1999, Caitriona joined the prosecution team of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to work on the trial of a Bosnian Serb general charged with genocide in the Srebrenica massacre. The UCD Rights Education Network is an interdisciplinary and cross- institutional network between academics, NGOs, and educational bodies who are interested in the field of rights education in Ireland. REN has been funded by the College of Social Science and Law Funding Scheme and is led by academics in the School of Education (Dr Deirdre McGillicuddy; Dr Gabriela Martinez-Sainz), Law (Assoc Prof Suzanne Egan) and Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice (Dr Muireann Ní Raghallaigh). The aim of REN is to facilitate connections and engagement between academic researchers and students at UCD with practitioners in the wider world in order to assist in capacity building in rights education generally. We also aim, through establishing the network, to enable participants to develop interdisciplinary/cross-sectoral partnerships and larger research projects in the field of rights education.

Member

The UCD Rights Education Network welcomed Dr Emily Logan to their inaugural webinar. Emily was appointed as the first Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission by President Higgins in 2014. Prior to this, she worked as Ireland’s first Ombudsman for Children and in 2008 was appointed by her peers to the position of President of the European Network of Ombudsmen for Children. Emily’s contribution to human and child rights nationally and internationally has been profound, most recently advocating for the rights of those most vulnerable in our society during Covid-19. The conversation explored the importance of rights and rights education within Irish society and the challenges it brings when embedding it in the everyday practices of our lives.

Radio interview in relation to refugee issues

Member

Contribution to RTÉ news regarding refugee family reunification

Member

Fellow (2019-Present)

Affiliate Researcher (representing Ireland) (2018 - Present)

Founding member (2018-Present)

Contribution regarding World Refugee Day Conference on meeting the needs of refugee children (held in UCD in conjunction with the Irish Refugee Council)

World Refugee Day Conference on meeting the needs of refugee children (held in UCD and organised in conjunction with the Irish Refugee Council)

World Refugee Day Conference on Meeting the Needs of Refugee Children (held in UCD and organised in conjunction with the Irish Refugee Council)

Member

Teifigh ag teacht go hÉireann (Refugees coming to Ireland)