By word and deed, Liam Maskey aims to demonstrate that peace and political progress can make a difference to the everyday lives of all the people of North Belfast. As founder of the Newington/Cavehill Community Services Association (NCCSA) and co-founder of Intercomm, Liam has worked to widely distribute the economic and social benefits of peace to as many people as possible. Through and beyond his work with these organisations, Liam has endeavoured to build peace, greater understanding, and tolerance across divided communities in Belfast and throughout the world. He is motivated by a vision of a brighter more inclusive future that sees difference as a positive aspect of society rather than a source of bitter division. In 2003, Liam was awarded the American President’s Prize for promoting Peace and Reconciliation. Most recently, he has delivered training on Conflict Transformation at the US Military Academy at Westpoint.

Both NCCSA and Intercomm arose in reaction to the absence of an indigenous economic base in North Belfast and both have initiated and encouraged organically linked economic renewal.

Liam founded NCCSA in 1989 as a response to growing local unemployment, community decline and youth delinquency within the Newington/Cavehill community of North Belfast. NCCSA was a government sponsored programme that attracted and introduced over 1000 long term unemployed people into working for and improving their community. Many of those who participated in the Action for Community Employment (ACE) scheme and the job skills training programme at NCCSA gained full time employment.

During his time at NCCSA, Liam realised that the social and economic issues that affected the Catholic community equally affected the Protestant community of North Belfast. Thus, in 1994, prior to the ceasefires, Liam began a dialogue with an influential Protestant community worker, Billy Mitchell. Although Liam and Billy come from two very different political and cultural traditions, both realised the necessity of developing long-term confidence and communication between the divided communities of Belfast. This dialogue resulted in the 1995 formation of a new inter-community organisation, Intercomm.

Liam Maskey with Irish President McAleese and
Intercomm co-founder Billy Mitchell

Through Intercomm, he has aggressively tackled the social and economic deprivation that characterised life in many communities in Belfast while also offering practical grassroots solutions to dealing with the difficult political issues affecting the whole community.

Since its formation in 1995, Intercomm has injected approximately £9 million into the local community through two kinds of activities. First, Intercomm develops and promotes organically linked community economic empowerment programmes in partnership with a range of voluntary and statutory agencies. Second, Intercomm has developed programmes that promote cross-community tolerance, respect and understanding that see Loyalists and Republicans, Nationalists and Unionists, working together for the betterment of all. All of Intercomm’s activities endeavour to ameliorate the problems endemic of thirty years of violent political conflict.

Among the projects at Intercomm for which Liam has been responsible is the Intercommunity Economic Rejuvenation Initiative, which operates in partnership with the Department of Social Development and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. This pilot programme has used local labour to renovate derelict houses on the interfaces of North Belfast. The first phase of this programme has been completed in the New Lodge and Tigers Bay communities of North Belfast. These once derelict houses are now the homes of local people. The rationale for this programme was to meet demand in the social housing sector and also to physically improve the appearance of the communities. Liam is also a founding member of the North Belfast Partnership Board, which was founded in 1997 to increase opportunity for social inclusion and community prosperity through the development of regeneration initiatives and programs that can improve the social, economic and physical infrastructure of North Belfast.

Through his many leadership roles in the community organizations, Liam has personally worked to promote peace at home and abroad. Locally, for example, Liam successfully helped to have death threats lifted against Protestant community workers while also guiding dialogue that brought the republican Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) to ceasefire.

Beyond his local effort, Liam has been a part of many delegations to Brussels, meeting EU politicians and civil servants stressing the importance of civil society organisations developing an income generation strategy to underpin their community development work. He has also developed innovative and empirical models and approaches that advance the process of peace-building in Northern Ireland and throughout the world and was instrumental in forging a new partnership with a leading American based Centre for Conflict and Negotiation, and also locally with Queens and Ulster University, Belfast.

Liam Maskey and Northern Ireland
delegation with Sri Lankan President
Mahinda Rajapaska, January 2006

He has organised, facilitated and secured funding for a number of political and peace study visits to South Africa for community and political leaders. He has participated in fact finding missions to Central America and Sri Lanka to examine the role of ex-combatants, government officials and civil society practitioners in social reconstruction and community building He has studied Mediation and Conflict Resolution at the Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia and Stanford University in California. He has lectured at the JFK school of Government at Harvard University and Columbia University as well as Tuft’s University, Boston, amongst others. This year Intercomm has hosted intern programmes for officer cadets from Westpoint, members of the RAND Institution USA and US Students.

In the past five years Liam has extensively worked with Israelis and Palestinians, liaising with the Irish Representative’s Office in Ramallah and the Israeli Administration in London. This work has led to the formation of the Belfast/Jerusalem Civil Society Partnership, consisting of organisations from Palestine and Israel and University of Ulster’s INCORE and Intercomm, which aims to exchange good practise and experience in lessons learned in negotiation, mediation and protocols for engaging protagonists. He has also delivered programmes with the support of NDI in Gaza and the West Bank on a programme related to struggle through non-violence.

In 2001, under Liam’s initiative, Intercomm USA incorporated under Massachusetts law, and in 2002 filed for 501(c)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service. Intercomm USA is an American corporation dedicated to making grants to charitable organizations to encourage key stakeholders to address the difficult issues of division and contention collaboratively, make meaningful interventions in conflict situations, while also developing new programs that encourage relationship building and understanding.

Liam Maskey meeting U.S. President George W. Bush
and Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern

Liam has represented North Belfast at the White House Conferences on Ireland and has also attended the White House St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on a number of occasions over the past few years. Most recently, in the summer of 2005, Liam delivered Conflict Transformation training at the US Military Academy at Westpoint presenting his formula, titled ‘Protocol for Engaging Protagonists’ as part of the DDR ‘Winning the Peace’ course.