BELFAST peace activist and Nobel Prize winner Betty Williams has been hailed as a "brave and courageous woman" following her death aged 76.
A founding member of The Peace People organisation, the former St Dominic's Grammar pupil began campaigning for an end to civil unrest in Northern Ireland after witnessing the horrific deaths of three young siblings killed in 1976 when they were struck by a car driven by an IRA member who had been fatally shot by a pursuing British soldier in west Belfast.
The deaths of the Maguire children prompted Betty and colleagues to form The Peace People alongside founder Ciaran McKeown, who died last September aged 76, and Mairead Corrigan.
The group organised marches at the height of the Troubles which brought tens of thousands of members of both communities together to demand an end to conflict.
Together with Ms Corrigan, Ms Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, and during her years campaigning also received gongs including the Martin Luther King Award and the People's Peace Prize of Norway.
The daughter of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother, she devoted her adult life to campaigning globally for peace, and upon receiving her Nobel Prize said: "Every death in every war that was ever fought represents life needlessly wasted, a mother's labour spurned."
Among those paying tribute to Ms Williams was Belfast SDLP councillor Séamas de Faoite, who described her as "a brave and courageous Belfast woman who stood up for peace."
A spokeswoman for the Nobel Women group for female laurates said: "Her legacy and incredible work for peace in Northern Ireland, with a passion for love and the rights of children in war everywhere, will never be forgotten."
