Mairead Corrigan Maguire

"Everyday there are people in our world that do absolutely amazing things. People of all ages are very capable of doing tremendous, courageous things in spite of their fear."

A description of Mairead Corrigan Maguire written by Joan Baez:

"The breath of God ran through her like a fair summer breeze. She was a smile. She was a prayer. She was endlessly brave, going into the streets and homes of "the enemy" unarmed and with cheerful countenance. No evil could envelop her or even touch her. I'm sure she is all those things still. She will hate to read this, because she is also self-effacing, like some other saints. God bless you, Mairead Corrigan. And God bless the brave women of Ireland who, for a brief but exceptional moment in time, waged mass nonviolent warfare in one of the most violent countries in the world." (excerpted from Baez' autobiography, And A Voice To Sing With)

In 1976, Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams and a journalist called Ciaran McKeown organized a series of peace marches in Northern Ireland after three children of Corrigan's sister Anne were killed by a gunman's getaway car. Tens of thousands turned out. Catholics and Protestants marched together.

Biography of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire by John Dear at the Peace People website

The Peace People organization

August 14, 1995 interview with Mairead Corrigan Maguire

October 2005 Tribute to Joseph Rotblat, a Nobel Laureate scientist and anti-nuclear activist, written by Mairead Corrigan Maguire

Another inspiring quote from Mairead Corrigan Maguire:

"...we reject the way the world is at the moment and we don't accept nuclear weapons, we don't accept the fact that we train men and women to kill each other-we think this is immoral-and we want to disarm human hearts and human beings, one by one, country by country and that's a big task. It's going to take all of my lifetime and several more generations of young people. It's going to take your generation too, to build a world --- a nonviolent world --- where people refuse to kill each other and human life is the ultimate value in our society and that's a vision. I do believe that it is something that is in the hearts of men and women and we've just got to get it out there into our politics in the world and change it that way."