Mairead Maguire

Activists

Mairead Maguire, who used to go by the name Mairead Corrigan, is a peace activist. Along with Ciaran McKeown and Betty Williams, she started a group called Community for Peace People. The group’s goal is to help bring an end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland in a peaceful way. The Nobel Peace Prize for 1976 went to Maguire and Williams for the work they did. She also helped start the Committee on the Administration of Justice in Northern Ireland. This is a non-sectarian group that fights for human rights and wants to get rid of the government’s emergency laws. She had to quit school when she was 14 because she came from a big family. She got a job and saved up enough money quickly to pay for a year at Miss Gordon’s Commercial College. Even though she started helping her community when she was young, she joined the Northern Ireland peace movement after a personal tragedy that led to the creation of the Community for Peace People. She worked hard with the community to promote a peaceful solution to the Northern Ireland conflict. This earned her a lot of respect and praise, including the Nobel Peace Prize at the age of 32. She still works for peace and was one of the founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative along with Betty Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Jody Williams, and Rigoberta Mench Tum, all of whom also won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Early years and childhood

Mairead Maguire was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 27, 1944, into a Roman Catholic family. Andrew and Margaret Corrigan are her parents, and she has two brothers and five sisters.
She went to a private Catholic school called St. Vincent’s Primary School but had to quit when she was 14 because her family could no longer pay the fees.

She got a job as a babysitter at a Catholic community center and saved enough money to go to Miss Gordon’s Commercial College for a year of business classes.

Career of Mairead Maguire

Mairead Maguire got a job as an accounting clerk at a local factory when she was 16 years old after she finished school. She was interested in helping people from a young age. She volunteered with the Legion of Mary often, spending her evenings and weekends working with kids and visiting prisoners at Long Kesh prison.

She started working at the Guinness brewery as a secretary when she was 21. She stayed there until December 1976.
In August 1976, the family was hit by a terrible tragedy. When Danny Lennon, a member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), was shot by British troops while trying to escape, the car he was driving went out of control. The driver lost control of the car, which hit Anne Maguire, Mairead’s sister, and her three children, who were out shopping. Anne was the only one who lived, but the other three children all died. Anne later killed herself because she was so sad.

Betty Williams, who lives in Andersonstown, saw this horrible accident happen. She said that the IRA shot at the British patrol, which caused the accident. Mairead and Betty Williams worked together to try to stop the violence that was getting worse in Northern Ireland.

They started getting Protestants and Catholics to sign a peace petition, and they were able to get about 200 women to march for peace in Belfast. The two women organized more marches, and more and more people joined them. A march to where the three Maguire children were buried brought together 10,000 Catholic and Protestant women.
The PIRA members were very violent toward the marchers, and several of them, including Mairead and Williams, were attacked physically. Still, the movement grew quickly, and within a few weeks, 35,000 people were on the streets of Belfast asking for peace between the loyalists and the republicans.

The women chose the name because the movement was getting more and more popular “Women for Peace” (Women for Peace). Some men, like ‘Irish Press’ reporter Ciaran McKeown, also joined, and the group’s name was changed to “Community of Peace People,” or just “Peace People,” to be gender-neutral “Peace, Folks.”

The group did a number of things to promote peace, like putting out a paper every two weeks, giving bus rides to the families of prisoners in Belfast jails, and pushing for a peaceful solution to the problems in Northern Ireland.
In 1981, Mairead Maguire helped start the Committee on the Administration of Justice, a non-religious group that works to protect human rights. She has also worked on a number of campaigns to help political prisoners around the world.

She has been to more than 25 countries, including the United States, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Israel, Austria, Croatia, and Slovenia, as part of her mission to promote peace and justice without violence. She has met with world leaders like Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth II, and President Jimmy Carter as part of her job.

In 2003, she was chosen to serve on the honorary board of the International Coalition for the Decade. In 2006, she was one of the founders of the Nobel Women’s Initiative, along with fellow Peace Prize winners Betty Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Jody Williams, and Rigoberta Mench Tum.

A Big Job

Mairead Maguire is best known as one of the people who started Community of Peace People with Ciaran McKeown and Betty Williams. The group’s main goal is to work for a peaceful end to the Troubles in Northern Ireland without using violence.

Awards & Achievements

The Nobel Peace Prize for 1976 was shared by Mairead Maguire and Betty Williams.
In 1992, she was given the Distinguished Peace Leadership Award by the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation “for her moral leadership and unwavering commitment to social justice and nonviolence.”

In 2006, the Albert Schweitzer International University gave her the Science and Peace Gold Medal for making important contributions to the spread of culture and the defense of world peace.

Personal History and Legacies

After her sister Anne killed herself, Mairead Corrigan married Jackie Maguire, who had been her sister’s brother-in-law. She has two of her own kids and three that belong to her sister.

Estimated net worth