The former US president Bill Clinton and the former and present prime ministers of Ireland and the UK Bertie Ahern, Tony Blair, and Rishi Sunak will be in Belfast this week for a three-day conference on the future of Northern Ireland.
After President Joe Biden’s historic visit last week, it will mean a second week of international spotlight and love-bombing of Belfast in the hope that messages of peace and economic prosperity transcend those of local political squabbles.
Also due in Belfast at the conference hosted by Queen’s University are the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Brexit negotiator Maroš Šefčovič , alongside a raft of senior White House representatives.
They include the ranking member of the US House of Representatives’ influential ways and means committee, Richard Neal, and the new economic envoy to Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy, who will be looking at ways of supercharging US investment in the region.
Last week Biden dangled a $6bn (£5bn) carrot in front of Northern Ireland’s leaders with a promise to boost the country’s economy with US investment if power sharing is restored.
He left Knock airport on Friday night warning that there was “more to do” in Northern Ireland but again reiterated the “incredible” promise of Northern Ireland, specifically citing opportunites in the cybersecurity sector.
Hillary Clinton, the former first lady, US state secretary and chancellor of Queen’s University, will kick off events centring on a three-day conference at the Belfast campus marking the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.
Sunak will headline a gala dinner on Wednesday night to acknowledge the contribution of young volunteers who have promoted reconciliation in their own communities.
“I will also pay tribute to young people who have continued to heal the wounds of a dark and difficult past, and those who came before them and set the groundwork for a better future,” the prime minister said.
It will be his fifth visit to Belfast since taking office in October, making it one of his most visited locations.
“This week we continue to acknowledge the courage, imagination and perseverance of those who built the Belfast (Good Friday) agreement. It gives me great pleasure to meet with some of the leading architects of peace and to commemorate those who are no longer with us,” he said.
Clinton, the 42nd president of the US, arrived on Friday night as the 46th president was ending his whistle-stop tour of Ireland in Ballina.
Clinton was seen wandering around Belfast over the weekend telling locals, including one young voter, Karl Duncan, that he was looking forward to his return to Derry.
Thank you President Clinton. Hume, Trimble, and others like them ensured my generation could live without witnessing the horrific violence that controlled this place for decades.
— Karl W. Duncan 🕊️🌹 (@KarlWDuncan) April 15, 2023
Looking forward to seeing you again on Tuesday! 🕊️
Shortly after bumping into him at a petrol station, Clinton told Duncan on Twitter that he was honoured to be part of the peace process, but “the real credit” went to the people of Northern Ireland for their perseverance.
In what has been billed in some quarters as a “Mr and Mrs” event, he, alongside Blair and Ahern, will be interviewed by his wife at the conference on Monday afternoon.
He will also return to Derry on Tuesday evening to pay a posthumous tribute to John Hume and David Trimble at the Guildhall, the scene of Clinton’s historic visit to the city in 1995, when he told the crowd he believed he lived in a time of “hope and history rhyming”.
He has visited the city multiple times, including in 2017 at Martin McGuinness’s funeral.
Other speakers lined up for the Belfast conference include the former US senator George Mitchell, who chaired the peace talks 25 years ago, Lord Empey, one of the key Ulster Unionist party participants in the negotiations, and former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
Mark Durkan, the former leader of the Social Democratic and Labour party leader, another key player, who was involved in the text of the agreement along with Monica McWilliams, co-founder of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, will also speak.
Prominent unionists scheduled to speak include Doug Beattie, head of the Ulster Unionist party, the DUP MP Ian Paisley, and Dawn Purvis, a former leader of the Progressive Unionist arty.
• This article was amended on 18 April 2023. Richard Neal is no longer the chair of the US House of Representatives’ ways and means committee, as an earlier version stated, though he is now the ranking member.
