Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan, and Ciaran McKeown formally founded the Community of Peace People, a cross-community movement against violence in Northern Ireland.
Just four days after witnessing the deaths of the Maguire children, Betty Williams joined with Mairead Corrigan (the children's aunt) and journalist Ciaran McKeown to formally establish the Community of Peace People on August 14, 1976, in Belfast.
The movement was groundbreaking in its structure and appeal: it was explicitly cross-community, drawing both Catholic and Protestant participants who were united not by political ideology but by a shared demand for an end to paramilitary violence. Within weeks, the Peace People organized mass rallies that drew tens of thousands of participants—Catholics and Protestants marching side by side—an extraordinary sight amid the sectarian violence of 'the Troubles.'
Williams played a central leadership role, using her direct, plainspoken style to mobilize working-class communities who had grown weary of bloodshed. The movement's early marches in Belfast and beyond represented one of the first sustained, visible expressions of grassroots popular opposition to violence from ordinary citizens rather than politicians or paramilitary leadership.
The founding of the Peace People is historically significant as a model of civilian-led, nonviolent peace activism emerging organically from tragedy. It demonstrated that ordinary citizens, particularly women, could organize powerful, apolitical movements demanding peace, and it laid the groundwork for the international recognition that would follow later that same year with the Nobel Peace Prize.