Hilltown, Northern Ireland
Martina Byrne is a community builder and quiet changemaker rooted in Hilltown, County Down, Northern Ireland. Originally trained in marine biology and business development, Martina’s path shifted after becoming a mother, when she experienced firsthand the isolation that can exist in rural life. Rather than wait for connection, she created it.
As a co-founder of a local women’s group that has now thrived for more than a decade, Martina has helped cultivate a space where women gather, learn, and grow—often in unexpected ways, from coffee mornings to creative workshops. What began as a simple effort to bring people together has evolved into a powerful platform for community development, cross-border collaboration, and grassroots peacebuilding.
Guided by the belief that real change happens in small, consistent steps, Martina works to bridge divides—social, political, and personal—by building trust one relationship at a time. She is especially passionate about elevating the role of women in peacebuilding and creating opportunities for voices that have too often gone unheard.
Hilltown, Ireland
“We don’t have to wait till it comes our way. We’ll go forward. We’ll go looking.”
On the power of connection:
“So where do you meet people? Slowly but surely I remember coming to a coffee morning for action. And it didn’t start til 10 o’clock and I was helping the girl that was doing it. And people were ready to come here at half nine. And that really stuck with me and I thought, people want to connect. There’s nothing that’s connecting them. This coffee morning is important to them. They were excited for it. They were here. They were here before the door opened. And that just stuck with me and I thought well maybe we should do more coffee mornings. What do we need to do?
By that stage I had met a few people like Sinead who you met yesterday and a few other women. And I realized yeah, we sort of have a kind of an idea here. So we went to look at how to take this forward because community work was really new to me. My background is marine biology and science and working with fish companies. So this was something different but I knew this was my home. I have to help.”
On women, energy, and community:
“We did a fashion show. We had 600 women in the hall. We had this big gathering of women at the end of that year. And realized you know we’re all in need of connection and it doesn’t matter where you are in life. You need to connect with people and particularly women. There’s a lot of energy and power that comes around when women get together. And that was our foundation. And then we started meeting here every two weeks. And had a kind of a plan, got funding to do different things. And we’ve tried everything from pole dancing to pottery. Nothing was prescriptive that we couldn’t do it. Let’s do it here. So that’s how we’ve managed to stay in the group, and grow it.”
On peace and how it begins:
“I think peace is the way you live your life and if you’re living your life expecting peace and expecting that everything is okay, well then that changes the environment. If everybody thinks the world’s a bad place, no matter where you live in the world, that has its impact.
So I think people need to live their own personal lives in peace to be able to act peacefully outside their houses, outside their home environment. I think peace means opportunity, future. It’s seeing barriers come down. Physical barriers, with the way work is done and government and funds and the focus on what’s happening here in Northern Ireland. That is changing.”
On the deeper drive behind her work:
“Well, I suppose coming from my point of view, I would have suffered poor mental health after I had my first child and that’s probably what drew me, coming from an area of isolation in my world. I needed to get better and I needed to get out there and get involved and that’s probably what drives me.
So I’ll be tuned into that on other people. I know when you just need time out and you need to just settle down again and your energies will come back. I’ve learned to see the satisfaction you get of making small changes. I’ve learned a confidence in myself, learned something different. I’ve went down a whole different road from what I thought I was going to do when I was 20-year-old. I thought I wanted to look down a petri dish all my life and study things again and then I realised this wasn’t me at all and I really get energy from other people and I’ve just learned I can do it and I can help others do the same.”
To read the introduction to this series, follow this link.
The Troubles: Finding a Path Toward Healing in Northern Ireland
To listen to our podcast, follow this link or find us on the platform of your choice.
A Peace of My Mind on Buzzsprout
Credits:
Interview and photos: John Noltner
Field production: summer interns Kate West, Sawyer Garrison, and Kaitlin Imai
Audio engineering: Razik Saifullah