Betty WilliamsArticle Free Pass Betty Williams, byname of
Elizabeth Williams (born May 22, 1943, Belfast, N.Ire.),
Northern Irish peace activist who, with Máiread Maguire and
Ciaran McKeown, founded the Peace People, a grassroots movement
dedicated to ending the sectarian strife in Northern Ireland.
For her work, Williams shared with Maguire the 1976 Nobel Prize
for Peace. Williams, an office worker and wife and mother, took
little part in public life until August 1976, when she witnessed
an incident that moved her to speak out. An Irish Republican
Army terrorist was shot by British troops while fleeing in a
car, and the car went out of control and struck several people,
killing three children. Williams immediately began circulating
petitions in Protestant neighbourhoods calling for an end to
sectarian violence. This activity soon brought her into
association with Maguire (then Máiread Corrigan), an aunt of the
slain children, who had been similarly galvanized into action.
Together they founded the Peace Peop