Former Direct Rule Minister, Lord Brian Mawhinney, who is a native of Northern Ireland, was the guest speaker at last week's Erne Integrated College prize day. In his address, he encouraged pupils to know the difference between right and wrong and the importance of being their own person.
Lord Mawhinney was born in 1940 in Belfast and was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. In 1963, he graduated in physics at Queen's University in Belfast, and then obtained a Ph.D. in radiation physics at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
His CV shows how he worked as assistant professor of radiation research at the University of Iowa from 1968–70 and then returned to the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine as a lecturer from 1970–84.
He was Westminster MP for Peterborough from 1979 to 1997 and for North West Cambridgeshire from 1997 to 2005. He was Private Parliamentary Secretary to John Wakeham from 1982 to 1983 and to Tom King from 1984 to 1986. He became a junior minister at the Northern Ireland Office in 1986, and then became Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office in 1990.
In 1992, he returned to Westminster and became Minister of State at the Department of Health until 1994 when he entered the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport. He served as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio for two years, from 1995 until the 1997 election. He served as Shadow Home Secretary and spokesman for Home, Constitutional and Legal affairs for a year under William Hague before returning to the back benches in June 1998.
He stepped down from the House of Commons in May 2005. On 13 May 2005 it was announced that he would be created a life peer, and on 24 June he was created Baron Mawhinney, of Peterborough, in the County of Cambridgeshire.
In 2003, he was appointed Chairman of the Football League, and he also serves on a number of all-party groups in Westminster, including the War Crimes Group and the Integrated Education in Northern Ireland Group and, from 1987-1990 was National President of Conservative Trade Unionists.
At the College's Evening of Celebration, he recalled his vivid memories of visiting the Enniskillen Integrated Primary School in early 1990, a short time after the school opened, and he shared the part he had played in supporting the Integrated Movement, particularly in driving the legislation contained in the Education Reform Order (NI) 1989, which contained specific reference to Integrated Schools.
Lord Mawhinney instanced how peer pressure could be a negative influence, and he advised his young listeners not to fear 'being different' and to think carefully about the 'everyone's doing it' mentality.
He praised the pupils for the many fine achievements in their academic and extra-curricular activities, and invited them to reflect on the importance of the continuous support they received from parents and teachers.
"Without that, your excellent achievements would be impossible."
He then touched on a number of amusing anecdotes from his own schooldays at RBAI – and what he had learned from them. As Chairman of the Football League, he spoke about the importance of positive role models from the world of sport, and expressed disappointment about the tendency for some top football stars to see cheating – diving, challenging referee's decisions, blocking free kicks – as being seen in some quarters as acceptable behaviour.
