Betty Smyth Williams

Betty Smyth Williams, born in 1943, Northern Ireland peace activist, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize for Peace. Williams shared the prize with fellow Northern Ireland activist Mairead Corrigan for organizing demonstrations against violence between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland.

Betty Smyth was born in Andersontown, a section of western Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. The child of a Catholic mother and a Protestant father, she was taught early to despise bigotry and prejudice. In 1961 she married Ralph Edward Williams, a Protestant.

As a young adult during the late 1960s, Williams was supportive of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), a military organization fighting to end British rule of Northern Ireland and establish a unified Irish Republic. Williams hid IRA members in her house and helped smuggle them into Ireland. She later distanced herself from the IRA.

In 1976 Williams witnessed the death of three young siblings who were struck by a car whose driver, an IRA member fleeing British troops, had been shot to death. Outraged by the event, that night Williams walked from house to house collecting signatures for a petition. The following day she pleaded on television for women of both faiths—Catholic and Protestant—to join her in a march for peace. Williams met Mairead Corrigan, the children’s aunt, at their funeral. The two women, along with Irish journalist Cairan McKeown, founded the Community of People for Peace (later known as Peace People).

The organization sought to end sectarian violence (violence between groups based on their affiliations) and the use of terrorism as a means to pursue political goals. The day after the children’s funeral the organization sponsored a march of nearly 10,000 people. The marchers faced political extremists who threw rocks, brandished sticks, and tried to block their path. However, the demonstrators continued their march from Andersontown to the children’s graves. Protests for peace continued throughout 1976, and in one march an estimated 35,000 participants crossed the invisible border between Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods in Belfast. See also Northern Ireland Conflict.