Forty students came to the Institute of Politics (IOP) Tuesday for the beginning of a two-month study of the Irish peace process.

The IOP study group, led by former Irish ambassador and current IOP Heffernan Fellow Jean Kennedy Smith, focuses on the history and current status of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Kennedy Smith said she decided to lead her study group because it is "something young people are very interested in."

"I'm not an expert in this at all," admitted Kennedy Smith, sister of U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54-'56 (D-Mass.). "The best way to make this course interesting was to bring people in who did know."

The seven-week program is filled with speakers from Ireland, all of whom are involved in the peace process in one way or another.

Yesterday's speaker, Irish Senator Maurice Manning, gave the attendees a broad history of the conflict and its roots, a foundation that future speakers will build upon.

"Today, we take for granted that Sein Fein will visit the [British] Prime Minister at 10 Downing St.," said the former Speaker of the Irish House. He went on to remind the audience that such was not always the case.

"When the current trouble started in 1969, there was no common ground," he said.