Mary Montague has been involved in peacebuilding work since 1975. She is a trained mediator and has had extensive experience working in community development and community relations throughout the many years of conflict in Northern Ireland. She has been an initiator of many programs to build capacity within communities worked with families from all sides of the community divide in Northern Ireland who had directly suffered due to the violence and developed therapeutic programs for children traumatized as a result of the conflict.

In 2001 Mary co-founded TIDES Training a Charitable non-profit Training and Consultancy company. Mary has an established background in community capacity development with a particular interest in mediation and conflict management. She has lectured and trained internationally on many occasions on the themes of conflict management, peacebuilding, and reconciliation through community building in countries such as Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Sudan, and Pakistan. The programs incorporate the learning from Northern Ireland, the ‘Rights-Based Approach’ and the ‘Do no harm’ approach. Mary is a founding member of the Women Waging Peace global network at the John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Boston, USA. She has been a committee member of the CFNI Communities in Transition Program and has sat on a number of Boards and Committees including the InterChurch Reconciliation Fund Committee, The Human Rights Commission Working Party for a bill of rights and victims. As an experienced mentor, she advises groups in strategic developmental projects. She offers coaching to many individuals on a one to one basis to further develop their skills in community development, mediation, and mediative interventions. She is the author of Relationships to Reconciliation.