135-137 Falls Rd, Belfast BT12 6AE, United Kingdom
Betty Williams studied at Saint Dominic’s Grammar School.
College/University
Career
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Betty Williams right and Mairead Corrigan chief architects of the newly formed peace movement in Belfast.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom
American folk singer Joan Baez, activists Ciaran McKeown and Mairead Corrigan and Jane Ewart-Biggs, wife of a British ambassador killed in Dublin, during the Ulster Peace Rally in Trafalgar Square, London, 27th November 1976. The rally was led by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Woodvale Park, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, co-founders of the Community of Peace People and joint winners of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, join hands with supporters in a prayer for peace in Northern Ireland at a peace rally of Catholic and Protestant women held at Woodvale Park, Belfast, 28th August 1976. Photo by Alex Bowie.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Betty Williams pictured with her husband and children. Photo by Jean Tesseyre.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Betty Williams, third from left, and Mairead Corrigan, third from right, won the Nobel Peace Prize for forming and leading the Women's Peace Movement in Northern Ireland. Photo by Leif Skoogfors.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom
From left to right, Betty Williams and her daughter Debbra, Ciaran McKeown, Jane Ewart-Biggs, wife of a British ambassador killed in Dublin, American folk singer Joan Baez, Mairead Corrigan, and Dr. Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, during the Ulster Peace Rally in Trafalgar Square, London, 27th November 1976. The rally was led by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Ireland: Leaders of the "Women for Peace" rally by Protestants and Catholics here show Betty Williams, and Mairead Corrigan, with others as they display some of the hundreds of telegrams of support they have received from all over the world during the rally. The peace campaign is to end the violence in Northern Ireland, which claimed more than 1,600 lives over the last seven years.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Donegall Square N, Belfast BT1 5GS, United Kingdom
Organized by Women For Peace, ordinary people of Belfast join together in a peace vigil in front of Belfast City Hall, Belfast, 23rd December 1976. Women For Peace (later the Community of Peace People) was co-founded by peace activists Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams. Photo by Alex Bowie.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1976
Boyne Bridge, Drogheda, Ireland
The Peace People: Mairead Corrigan, Ciaran McKeown, folk singer/songwriter Joan Baez (linking arm of a man with beard), and Betty Williams at Peace Rally at the Boyne Bridge in Drogheda, 05.12.1976.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1998
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan in 1998.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1998
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams in 1998.
Gallery of Betty Williams
1999
Vatican City, Vatican
Pope John Paul II receives seven Nobel Peace Prize Winners Mikhail Gorbachev and Raisa Gorbachova, Rigoberta Menchu, Shimon Peres, Betty Williams, Claude Joseph Rotblat, David Trimble, and Frederick de Klerk and Mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli at his private library in the Apostolic Palace on April 22, 1999, in Vatican City, Vatican.
Gallery of Betty Williams
2008
Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, 75004 Paris, France
Bono, Bertrand Delanoe, Walter Veltroni, Frederik Willem de Klerk (Nobel Peace Prize 1993), Lech Walesa (Nobel Peace Prize 1983), Betty Williams (Nobel Peace Prize 1976). Photo by Stephane Cardinale.
Gallery of Betty Williams
2009
San Demetrio ne'Vestini, Abruzzo, Italy
Actor George Clooney and Nobel Prize winner Betty Williams attend the opening ceremony of the Nobel for Peace Hall on July 9, 2009, in San Demetrio, 3 km from L'Aquila, Italy.
Gallery of Betty Williams
2014
Piazza del Campidoglio, 00186 Roma RM, Italy
Gallery of Betty Williams
2014
Piazza del Campidoglio, 00186 Roma RM, Italy
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Betty Williams attend the closing press conference of the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Aula Giulio Cesare on December 14, 2014, in Rome, Italy. Photo by Ernesto Ruscio.
Gallery of Betty Williams
2014
Piazza del Campidoglio, 00186 Roma RM, Italy
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, mayor of Rome Ignazio Marino, Bernardo Bertolucci, Betty Williams, and Tawakkol Karman attend the closing press conference of the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Aula Giulio Cesare on December 14, 2014, in Rome, Italy. Photo by Ernesto Ruscio.
Gallery of Betty Williams
2015
Matera, Italy
Sharon Stone and Betty Williams seen during the latter's visit to Basilicata. Photo by Cosimo Martemucci.
Achievements
Membership
Nobel Women's Initiative
Williams was a founding member of the Nobel Women's Initiative.
Awards
People's Peace Prize of Norway
1977
Oslo, Norway
Betty Williams, right, with Mairead Corrigan in Oslo, Norway, in 1976 after receiving the Norwegian People’s Peace Prize for founding a peace movement in Northern Ireland.
American folk singer Joan Baez, activists Ciaran McKeown and Mairead Corrigan and Jane Ewart-Biggs, wife of a British ambassador killed in Dublin, during the Ulster Peace Rally in Trafalgar Square, London, 27th November 1976. The rally was led by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan.
Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan, co-founders of the Community of Peace People and joint winners of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize, join hands with supporters in a prayer for peace in Northern Ireland at a peace rally of Catholic and Protestant women held at Woodvale Park, Belfast, 28th August 1976. Photo by Alex Bowie.
Betty Williams, third from left, and Mairead Corrigan, third from right, won the Nobel Peace Prize for forming and leading the Women's Peace Movement in Northern Ireland. Photo by Leif Skoogfors.
From left to right, Betty Williams and her daughter Debbra, Ciaran McKeown, Jane Ewart-Biggs, wife of a British ambassador killed in Dublin, American folk singer Joan Baez, Mairead Corrigan, and Dr. Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, during the Ulster Peace Rally in Trafalgar Square, London, 27th November 1976. The rally was led by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan.
Ireland: Leaders of the "Women for Peace" rally by Protestants and Catholics here show Betty Williams, and Mairead Corrigan, with others as they display some of the hundreds of telegrams of support they have received from all over the world during the rally. The peace campaign is to end the violence in Northern Ireland, which claimed more than 1,600 lives over the last seven years.
Donegall Square N, Belfast BT1 5GS, United Kingdom
Organized by Women For Peace, ordinary people of Belfast join together in a peace vigil in front of Belfast City Hall, Belfast, 23rd December 1976. Women For Peace (later the Community of Peace People) was co-founded by peace activists Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams. Photo by Alex Bowie.
The Peace People: Mairead Corrigan, Ciaran McKeown, folk singer/songwriter Joan Baez (linking arm of a man with beard), and Betty Williams at Peace Rally at the Boyne Bridge in Drogheda, 05.12.1976.
Betty Williams, right, with Mairead Corrigan in Oslo, Norway, in 1976 after receiving the Norwegian People’s Peace Prize for founding a peace movement in Northern Ireland.
Pope John Paul II receives seven Nobel Peace Prize Winners Mikhail Gorbachev and Raisa Gorbachova, Rigoberta Menchu, Shimon Peres, Betty Williams, Claude Joseph Rotblat, David Trimble, and Frederick de Klerk and Mayor of Rome Francesco Rutelli at his private library in the Apostolic Palace on April 22, 1999, in Vatican City, Vatican.
Bono, Bertrand Delanoe, Walter Veltroni, Frederik Willem de Klerk (Nobel Peace Prize 1993), Lech Walesa (Nobel Peace Prize 1983), Betty Williams (Nobel Peace Prize 1976). Photo by Stephane Cardinale.
Actor George Clooney and Nobel Prize winner Betty Williams attend the opening ceremony of the Nobel for Peace Hall on July 9, 2009, in San Demetrio, 3 km from L'Aquila, Italy.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Betty Williams attend the closing press conference of the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Aula Giulio Cesare on December 14, 2014, in Rome, Italy. Photo by Ernesto Ruscio.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, mayor of Rome Ignazio Marino, Bernardo Bertolucci, Betty Williams, and Tawakkol Karman attend the closing press conference of the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates at Aula Giulio Cesare on December 14, 2014, in Rome, Italy. Photo by Ernesto Ruscio.
(The Nobel Peace Prizewinners during the period 1971-1980 ...)
The Nobel Peace Prizewinners during the period 1971-1980 include men, women, and organizations whose principles, dedication, and diligence continue to shape history. These volumes are collections of the Nobel lectures delivered by the Prizewinners, together with their biographies, portraits, and presentation speeches by representatives of the Norwegian Nobel Committee for the period 1971-1980. Each Nobel Lecture is based on the work that won the laureate his prize. New biographical data of the laureates, since they were awarded the Nobel prize, are also included.
Betty Williams was a 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.
Background
Betty Williams was born Elizabeth Smyth on May 22, 1940, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. She was a daughter of a Protestant butcher, George Smyth, and his Catholic wife Margaret Dunne, a part-time waitress. She had a Protestant father and Catholic mother, a family background from which she derived religious tolerance and a breadth of vision that motivated her to work for peace.
Education
Betty Williams studied at Saint Teresa’s Primary School and Saint Dominic’s Grammar school in Belfast. She didn't receive any higher education diploma except for numerous honorary doctorates.
The Peace People group owed its origin to a tragic sequence of events that began on 10 August 1976 when British soldiers shot and killed Danny Lennon, a 23-year old Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer and driver. Lennon’s car careered off the road and crashed into the family of Anne Maguire. She lost three children, as Joanne (eight) and Andrew (six weeks) died immediately and John (two) died the next day in the hospital. Anne took her own life four years later.
Williams, who was driving nearby, had heard the gunfire and was one of the first to arrive at the scene. Following the tragedy, she was motivated to create a petition calling for a cessation of the hostilities which soon gathered 6,000 signatures. In the days that followed a march of several hundred people passed close to the house of Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Anne’s sister, who was moved to join the campaign.
The subsequent gathering of the newly formed Women’s Peace Movement saw a crowd of some 10,000 people come together at Andersonstown in west Belfast on a pilgrimage to the graves of the children who had died. The march was disrupted by members of the IRA who called the group’s members "dupes of the British." Unintimidated by these threats, the movement’s demonstration the following week brought 20,000 people into Ormeau Park, Belfast.
Working together with the journalist Ciaran McKeown, Williams and Corrigan Maguire established the Peace People group, as it is known to this day. The group’s first declaration, penned by McKeown, was straightforward and to the point: "We have a simple message to the world from this movement for peace. We want to live and love and build a just and peaceful society."
Their marches brought many thousands to the streets of Belfast, Dublin, and London. Peace People said that within six months of their founding, violence had dropped by 70 percent and would never return to the rate of death and destruction experienced at the height of the Troubles.
Williams and Corrigan Maguire were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year for their work in seeking to bring an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland. Williams took readily to the role of a peace ambassador, traveling worldwide and meeting with figures including the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela.
Williams left Peace People in 1980, while Corrigan Maguire has remained as the organization’s president. Williams then spent the next two decades in the United States, where she lectured extensively, before returning to settle in Belfast.
(The Nobel Peace Prizewinners during the period 1971-1980 ...)
1977
Religion
Betty Williams was a Roman Catholic.
Politics
Williams' peace activism had a strong impact on the political situation in British-Irish relations.
Views
In 2006 Williams helped to found the Nobel Women’s Initiative, together with Corrigan Maguire and others. The organization seeks to work for peace, justice, and equality.
Quotations:
"Don’t kill my child, it’s easy to remember, and you didn’t give birth to your baby for someone to take its life."
Membership
Williams was a founding member of the Nobel Women's Initiative.
Nobel Women's Initiative
Personality
Williams, dazzled by the attention she received from journalists and broadcasters, focused on becoming an international peace activist and enjoying the associated lifestyle for which she sometimes was accused of vanity.
Interests
dressmaking, gardening, reading
Sport & Clubs
swimming
Connections
Betty Williams got married to Ralph Williams on 14 June 1961 when she was 18 years old. Ralph was an engineer in the merchant marine. He was a Protestant of English descent. After marriage, they became parents of a son named Paul Andrew Williams and a daughter named Deborah Williams. By 1979, her marriage began to show cracks, culminating in divorce in 1981. In 1982, Betty Williams married educator James T. Perkins and moved to the United States of America. In 2006, she returned to Northern Ireland and has been continuing to work for peace across the globe.