Corrigan, Mairead, << MOY ruh >> (1944-…), is a Northern Ireland peace activist. Corrigan, a secretary from Belfast, Northern Ireland, was a cofounder in 1976, with Betty Williams and Ciaran McKeown, of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement, later called the Peace People, or Community of the Peace People. For their courageous stand against political and religious violence in Ulster, Corrigan and Williams were awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize for peace, presented in 1977.
In August 1976 in Andersonstown, Belfast, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) terrorist in a “getaway” car was shot and killed by a police patrol. His vehicle went out of control, injuring Corrigan’s sister Anne Maguire and killing Maguire’s three children. Corrigan denounced the IRA on television and called for an end to the bitter conflict between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Betty Williams, who had witnessed the incident, obtained 6,000 signatures on a petition for peace. Corrigan and Williams led 10,000 women, both Catholic and Protestant, on a peace march through Andersonstown in 1976. The two “peace women,” as they became known, and Ciaran McKeown, a journalist, formed the Northern Ireland Peace Movement, which eventually became the Peace People, an organization that spanned the division between Catholics and Protestants.
The Peace People organized marches both in Northern Ireland and on the United Kingdom mainland. Corrigan and Williams urged Protestant-Catholic integration in schools, playgrounds, sports clubs, and residential areas as a step toward building trust and eventual peace. With international financial assistance, which included the 1976 Nobel Prize, they provided a special bus service to help families visit paramilitary prisoners in jail, started a peace movement newspaper called Peace by Peace, and set up a relocation settlement in New Zealand for members of paramilitary groups to start a new life undisturbed by those seeking revenge.
The Peace People helped reduce the level of violence in Northern Ireland. In 1978, Corrigan and Williams resigned as leaders of the movement but remained influential. Williams eventually left the group. Corrigan served as chair of the Community of the Peace People in 1980 and 1981.
Mairead Corrigan was born on Jan. 27, 1944, in Falls Road, a Roman Catholic area of west Belfast. She attended local Roman Catholic schools, and then trained as a shorthand typist and secretary. After leaving school, Corrigan joined the Legion of Mary, a lay Roman Catholic welfare organization, and became active as a voluntary social worker. In 1981, after marrying Jack Maguire, her late sister’s husband, she changed her name to Corrigan-Maguire. Her sister had committed suicide a few years after her children were killed.
