Uniting
Research and Policy

Avila Kilmurray is a prominent figure in community development and peacebuilding, having lived and worked in Northern Ireland since 1975. Kilmurray is a founder member of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, which she helped to establish in 1996. She was also a member of its negotiation team for the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement in 1998.  

She has held a series of influential roles throughout her career. From 1984 to 1988, she served as Regional Coordinator of the Rural Action Project (NI), an EU Anti-Poverty Programme. Following this, she worked as a Development Officer with the Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA) from 1988 to 1989, and then as Women's Officer with the Transport & General Workers Union (later Unite) from 1989 to 1994. 

From 1994 to 2014, Kilmurray was the Director of the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, where she managed EU funding programmes supporting political ex-prisoners, victims/survivors of violence, and grassroots community activism. She played a key role in the establishment of the Foundations for Peace Network, an international network of funders working in conflict regions. During her tenure, the Foundation was a founding member of this network. 

Kilmurray holds a PhD from the Institute of Governance at Queen’s University Belfast and has published extensively, including the book “Community Action in a Contested Society: The Story of Northern Ireland” (Lang 2017). She is a member of the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice & Peace, and serves as an Honorary Professor in the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University. Additionally, she is a board member of the International Fund for Ireland, the St. Stephen’s Green Trust, and is on the Northern Ireland Advisory Committee of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.