Nobel Peace Prize 1976

Betty Williams

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Prize share: 1/2

Mairead Corrigan

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Prize share: 1/2

The Nobel Peace Prize 1976 was awarded jointly to Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan "for the courageous efforts in founding a movement to put an end to the violent conflict in Northern Ireland"

Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan received their Nobel Prize one year later, in 1977. During the selection process in 1976, the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided that none of the year's nominations met the criteria as outlined in the will of Alfred Nobel. According to the Nobel Foundation's statutes, the Nobel Prize can in such a case be reserved until the following year, and this statute was then applied. Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan therefore received their Nobel Prize for 1976 one year later, in 1977.

To cite this section
MLA style: The Nobel Peace Prize 1976. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach 2025. Fri. 5 Dec 2025. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1976/summary/>

Streams during Nobel Week

Watch the 2025 Nobel Prize lectures, Nobel Week Dialogue, the prize award ceremonies in Oslo and Stockholm and Nobel Peace Prize Forum here at nobelprize.org.

Explore prizes and laureates

Look for popular awards and laureates in different fields, and discover the history of the Nobel Prize.