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Dr Gail McConnell Reflects on Tove Jansson Day: Commemorating 25 Years of the Good Friday Agreement

#gfa25 #goodfridayagreement #toveJansson #finland #ireland Dr Gail McConnell was an honoured guest for a joint event commemorating 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement on 02 June 2023, which took place in Helsinki, Finland. The event was an opportunity to remember the past, recognise the present and consider the future. It was also an opportunity to note with appreciation the important role played by Finnish officials in the Northern Ireland peace process (see more here). Drawing inspiration from the words of Tove Jansson’s ‘The Summer Book’, Dr McConnell delivered a reflection on her personal loss in the context of conflict in Northern Ireland. That reflection was recorded in Belfast in August 2023 to coincide with Tove Jansson Day. Dr McConnell is a poet and academic from Belfast whose debut poetry book ‘The Sun is Open’ (Penned in the Margins, 2021) about her father’s murder by the IRA won the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Award and the Christopher Ewar