Geraldine Smyth
Adjunct Associate Professor
Email: gsmyth@tcd.ie
Geraldine is from Belfast, where she is involved in research and action on conflict transformation, ecumenical and interreligious reconciliation. She holds a first in English from University of Ulster; Masters and Ph.D degrees in Theology from Trinity College Dublin; an Honorary Doctorate from Queen’s University Belfast; and a Diploma in Transpersonal Psychotherapy and Psychosynthesis, Dublin. She has been on the staff of ISE for 20 years, twice its Director. She is on the Board of Directors of Healing Through Remembering, Northern Ireland; formerly Chair of the International Advisory Group of the Institute of Conflict Research (INCORE) University of Ulster, and has acted as theological consultant to the World Council of Churches (projects on Justice, Peace and the integrity of Creation, and Theology of Life) and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity (Ecumenical Formation). She is a member of the Dominican Order, living in a Dublin community, and was Prioress of her international congregation (1998-2004).
Research Involvements
Member of Research Project, Formative Childhoods for Peace, (School of Medicine, Yale Child Study Centre, Yale, ACEV Initiative, Turkey; Ernst Struengmann Forum, Fetzer Institute).Founding Member (2009-) Ara Pacis Foundation: Council of Dignity, Forgiveness and Reconciliation; International Charter of Forgiveness and Reconciliation (in partnership with the Fetzer Institute and Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace, and the Nishkam Centre Birmingham; and University of Birmingham, 2014).
Select Publications:
A Way of Transformation: A Theological Evaluation of the Conciliar Process on Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation, WCC 1983-1991, (Berne, 1995).
Co-editor (with Andrew Pierce, The Critical Spirit: Theology at the Crossroads of Faith and Culture, Dublin, 2003.
Glimpses of God, with Lesley Carroll, (Dublin 2010).
‘What Lies Beneath: From Purity and Power to Crisis and Kairos’, in P. Claffey, J. Egan and Marie Keenan (Eds.), Broken Faith: Why Hope Matters, Bern, 2013.
‘Forgiveness between the Theological and the Social’, in T. Eggensperger, U.Engel, A.F.Méndez Montoya (Eds.), Edward Schillebeeckx: Impulse für Theologien - Impetus Towards Theologies, Grünewald, Verlag, 2012.
‘Wisdom to Know the Difference: Reconfiguring a Theological Paradigm in the Transition to Peace in Ireland’ (with Lesley Carroll) in John O’Grady and Peter Scherle (Eds.), Ecumenics from the Rim: Explorations in Honour of John D’Arcy May (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2007).
Forthcoming: ‘Body of Christ, Body of Life’ in Andrew Pierce & Oliver Schuegraf (ed.), Den Blick weiten: Wenn Ökumene den Religionen begegnet. Ecumenism Encounters the Religions. Proceedings of the 17th Academic Consultation of the Societas Oecumenica (Beihefte zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 99), Leipzig 2014).
She has contributed papers at Interfaith and Ecumenical Symposia in India, Iran, Israel, USA, Australia, Argentina, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and many European Countries on the renewal of intra- and inter-religious epistemologies and ethical traditions of overcoming violence and building theologies of peace in a plural world. Currently she is on the Editorial board of the journal, One in Christ.