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During 1996 Terry Waite became the choir’s Patron, in tribute to the humanitarian role which the choir had adopted. Messages of appreciation were also received from the President of Ireland, Mary Robinson, and from the British Prime Minister, John Major. In the August of that year, concerts for Peace and Reconciliation, arranged in partnership with the Irish Peace Institute, were given before large and enthusiastic audiences in Limerick and at Glenstal Abbey, Co. Limerick. The choir was privileged to be invited to perform as part of the Opening Ceremony of the 38th Rose of Tralee International Festival where, before an audience of 50,000 people, Tanaiste Dick Spring publicly endorsed the choir’s efforts to promote peace.
In December 1997, working in co-operation with Dublin Rotary Club and the Irish Peace Institute, the choir initiated a unique and ambitious Christmas Concert for Peace in Dublin’s National Concert Hall. A 260-strong ‘Youth Choir for Peace’, school children drawn from North and South, Catholic and Protestant, was brought together symbolising hope and harmony. During the visit to Dublin, in Christ Church Cathedral, the choir was presented to Ireland’s newly elected President, Mary McAleese, who offered her personal support. (The occasion caught international attention as President McAleese chose to receive the Anglican Holy Communion in a bold and highly controversial act of reconciliation).
A yet more ambitious and symbolic seasonal event, Christmas Peace and Harmony, was held in the Waterfront Hall, Belfast in December 1998. The concert, arranged in co-operation with Belfast Rotary Club and the Irish Peace Institute, involved a cross-community, cross-border ‘Youth Choir for Peace’ formed by 540 young people, possibly the largest children’s choir assembled in the island of Ireland. The bands of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and An Garda Síochána, in a most significant show of cross-border co-operation, agreed to come together to play as one combined police band for the first time since the founding of the Irish State.
The choir was also invited to perform in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, to bring some Christmas solace to the victims, families and friends in the wake of the devastating bombing of Omagh town centre three months earlier, which was to become Northern Ireland’s worst terrorist atrocity.
The following year, in December 1999, a third event was held in association with the Irish Peace Institute, in Limerick University Concert Hall, again involving a massed cross-border Youth Choir representing all traditions. This was followed by an historic concert in Dublin’s Mountjoy Prison, in the company of Terry Waite. Warrington Male Voice Choir became the first British choir to perform in an Irish jail, a gesture which was supported at the highest level of government.
At Christmas 2000, in addition to further special performances in West Belfast, East Belfast and Omagh, the choir was invited to take part in a Community Christmas Concert in Londonderry by the Apprentice Boys of Derry. Although numerically a small event and somewhat controversial, the concert represented an historic step by the Apprentice Boys towards reconciliation.