ABOUT US

The Citizenship Papers and the "Citizenship, Emigration, and Voting Rights Post-Brexit" Conference are collaborations between VotingRights.ie, VICA, and the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin. 

The conference is supported by a generous grant from the Emigrant Support Programme of Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs, who we thank for their support. We are also grateful for the support of EPIC, the Irish Emigration Museum.

The Clinton Institute was established at UCD in 2003 and named to honour the role of President Clinton and his administration in the Northern Ireland Peace Process. The Institute offers Masters and PhD degrees and also runs a programme of activities devoted to advancing academic research and public discussion about the United States. Drawing on many disciplines, the Institute offers a dynamic and wide-ranging coverage of American politics, foreign policy, culture and media. Through its research, teaching and programme of outreach activities, the Institute promotes study of the United States nationally and internationally. This includes a focus on Ireland-US relations, which is supplemented with our links to cultural, diplomatic and business organisations in Ireland with an interest in the US.

VotingRights.ie is a coalition of groups and individuals working to advance the cause of emigrant voting rights through uniting the global leadership of the movement; informing decision-makers, media and citizens on issues related to emigrant voting; and providing a platform for interested citizens. VotingRights.ie was founded by Kevin Sullivan, former Senator Billy Lawless, and Noreen Bowden. 

VICA is a London-based group campaigning for Irish citizens living abroad to be able to vote in elections and referendums in Ireland. Formed in 2011, the group includes first and second generation Irish citizens abroad.

Kevin Sullivan is co-founder of VotingRights.ie and is also the current Project Director of the Ad Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement. As a Senior Adviser to U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley in the Clinton Administration Kevin staffed out two of President Clinton’s trips to Ireland c and was the key driver in creating “Civic Link” which President Clinton announced in Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1998. The U.S. Government would commit several million dollars to support Civic Link, a cross community and cross border civic action initiative for secondary students which would engage over 12,500 students under the auspices of Co-operation Ireland.  Kevin currently chairs the Patrons Committee of the Washington Ireland Program (WIP) and served as its Chairman for nine years. He is a graduate of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C.  He is an Irish citizen.

Noreen Bowden has been engaged in Irish diaspora issues for more than twenty years and is a cofounder of VotingRights.ie. Previously the Executive Director of the Emigrant Advice Network in Dublin, she also spent five years at Irish Emigrant Publications in Galway, the pioneering digital news service established by Liam Ferrie. She founded GlobalIrish.ie in 2009.  Noreen has been a long-time advocate for emigrant voting rights and has also campaigned extensively on the broadcasting needs of the Irish in Britain. Her board memberships include serving on the board of the Irish Immigration Center in Boston, as vice-president of Europeans Thoughout the World in Brussels, and as secretary of Democrats Abroad in Dublin. Born in New York and having lived in Ireland for fifteen years, she has a BA from Notre Dame, an MA in Irish literature and culture from Boston College, and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard.

Professor Liam Kennedy is the Executive Director at the Clinton Center for American Studies at University College Dublin. Professor Kennedy has diverse research interests and teaching experiences, spanning the fields of American cultural and media studies, globalisation and Irish-US relations. He is the author of Susan Sontag (1995), Race and Urban Space in American Culture (2000) and Afterimages: Photography and US Foreign Policy (2016). He is editor of Urban Space and Representation (1999) City Sites: An Electronic Book (2000), Remaking Birmingham: The Visual Culture of Urban Regeneration (2004),The Wire: Race, Class and Genre (2013) and The Violence of the Image (2014), and Neoliberalism and American Literature (2016). He is currently researching contemporary Irish America and also preparing edited books on the election and presidency of Donald Trump and on diaspora and diplomacy.