Northern Ireland

In 1976, Northern Ireland had reached a state of heightened tension during the Troubles. An increase in warfare between the British army and the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) had led to the murder of 5 Catholic and 10 Protestant people in January, the Constitutional Convention talks among the politicians of Northern Ireland had failed after less than a year, and Northern Ireland was effectively being ruled from the British mainland.

The catalyst for the Peace People occurred on August 12, 1976, when British soldiers mortally shot an IRA gunman, whose car subsequently went out of control, killing three small children from the Maguire family in West Belfast. The children's aunt, Mairéad Corrigan, joined with Betty Williams and journalist Ciarán McKeown to form the Women's Peace Movement of Northern Ireland, which was later named the Peace People.

The movement began with a rally phase, which consisted of a series of marches in Northern Ireland and Britain between August 1976 and March 1977. The first march took place on the Saturday immediately after the deaths of the Maguire children, with between 20,000 and 25,000 Protestant and Catholic women gathering at Finaghy Road North, the site of the deaths. Rob Fairmichael, author of “The Peace People Experience” pamphlet, estimates that 100,000 people attended at least one of the Peace People rallies, which is about 6.5% of the entire population of Northern Ireland.

The movement was well received by the British government, which saw the Peace People as a supporter of its peace policies and also by the political parties of the center and the right in Northern Ireland. There were, however, those opposed to the Peace People. The loyalist Protestant Telegraph described it as a priest-inspired campaign, a front organization to help the Roman Catholic Church gain credibility. Republican leader Gerry Adams criticized the movement, saying that the system that the Irish live under is not built for peace, and it is this that will defeat the desire that the Peace People were demonstrating.

There were also many Republicans who saw the Peace People as traitors of the move for independence in Northern Ireland, and their anger turned into violence at the Falls Road rally in Belfast, on October 23, 1976. The 10,000 Peace People marchers were attacked with bricks, bottles, and stones by local Republicans, who saw the movement as a betrayal of the effort to regain a 32-county Ireland. While the IRA did not coordinate the attack, they also did not provide protection to the marchers, and several people received injuries. Despite the opposition, the Peace People influenced public opinion and gave ordinary citizens a forum for voicing their opposition to the sectarian violence through the marches. It was during the rally phase of the movement that the news media latched onto the Peace People as a phenomenon.

In the early stages, McKeown remained behind the scenes so that Corrigan and Williams could attract as much media attention for the movement as possible. The two women were an attractive new face for the peace movement in Northern Ireland, and they became the darlings of the media at home and abroad. Once the media frenzy died down, however, it became clear that the Peace People would have to strengthen their ideology if they were to have a lasting impression on Northern Ireland.

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