Anne Carr

Anne Carr is a peace activist and community worker who has dedicated her career to peacebuilding and reconciliation in post-conflict Northern Ireland. Since the 1980s, she has advocated for better community relations through improved dialogue and mutual understanding. She helped develop the first integrated primary school outside of Belfast, and actively participated in cross-community organisations including Women Together for Peace, the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, and Community Dialogue which she founded in 1997. Brought up on the Shankill Road, Anne Carr later relocated to Newcastle, County Down. In Newcastle, she was integral in developing the first integrated primary school outside of Belfast and, in 1986, All Children’s Integrated Primary School opened its doors to pupils. In 1990, as part of her involvement and engagement with the peace process, she joined Women Together – a group of women from all backgrounds who campaigned for peace and an end to sectarian violence. She served as the organisation's Development Officer and was responsible for implementing and devising key initiatives to improve cross-community relations including ‘Talking and Listening Circles’ and a peace quilt project which brought together women who hand-sewed individual themed patchwork squares, symbolically stitched together. By the mid-1990s, Anne Carr joined the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, a cross-community political party, where she became the first woman elected as a Local Councillor. In the succeeding years, she founded Community Dialogue in 1997 – an organisation committed to invoking positive change by bringing people together who held opposing political, social, and religious views. As of today, she continues to work for Community Dialogue.

This archive was kindly donated by Anne Carr for the extraORDINARYwomen project, and is comprised of material relating to her time as a member of Women Together for Peace.