The Practice of Nonviolence: from Ireland to India

Description

Hugh Curran, who was raised in Ireland and Canada, will talk about how nonviolence practices in both Ireland and India lead to major changes in each country and influenced others worldwide during a talk and slideshow at the Jesup Memorial Library on Friday, March 13 at 7 p.m. In the event of bad weather, there is a snow date of Saturday, March 14 at 7 p.m.
 
Curran will first talk about nonviolence practices in Ireland and how these practices led to the Northern Ireland Peace Accord in 1998. Afterward, Curran will focus on Leo Tolstoy’s writings on nonviolence, which had a powerful impact on Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi went on to become deeply committed to the principles of nonviolence and truth and became a major force in India’s independence movement. His life-long commitment to these principles later inspired leaders like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, who went on to adhere to these same tenets of nonviolence and truth.
 
Since 2002, Curran has been a lecturer in the Peace & Reconciliation Studies at the University of Maine. He also has published poems in various poetry journals as well as compiling a classroom text “Excerpts from Classical & Modern Writers on War & Peace.” In 2017, he was invited to present a paper “On the Ethics of Animal Suffering” at Oxford University, and in the Fall of 2019 he was asked to give a talk on “Tolerance & Nonviolence” at the Global Council on Tolerance and Peace in Malta. In addition, he was the co-director of a homeless shelter in Downeast Maine and has published articles on homelessness.
 
For more information on this talk, contact the Jesup at 207-288-4245.