Ciaran McKeown: Journalist and activist who campaigned for peace in Northern Ireland

He was a significant presence at the height of the Troubles and spoke out in favour of police reform

McKeown (centre) at the Ulster Peace Rally in Trafalgar Square, London, November 1976 (Getty)

Ciaran McKeown, who has died aged 76, was a journalist, pacifist and co-founder of Peace People, a grass-roots organisation that has campaigned for more than four decades for an end to violence in Northern Ireland.

McKeown was born in Derry in 1943, the son of a teacher, and grew up in Belfast. He studied philosophy at Queen’s University and in 1966 became the first student from a Catholic family to be elected president of the university’s student council. Two years later he became deputy president of the Union of Students of Ireland and was elected its president in 1969. On leaving university McKeown became a journalist, working initially for The Irish News.

Peace People had its origin in tragic circumstances. On 10 August 1976 British army soldiers shot and fatally wounded an IRA volunteer, Danny Lennon, who was driving on Finaghy Road North. His car careered out of control into the family of Anne Maguire, who lost three children as a result of the crash. Joanne, eight, and Andrew (six weeks) died immediately and John, two, died the following day in hospital.

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Anne’s sister, appeared on television in the days that followed making an impassioned plea for peace. An early meeting of the nascent Women’s Peace Movement, at Andersonstown in west Belfast, attracted some 10,000 people, with widespread support from both Catholics and Protestants.

McKeown was working as a political journalist for The Irish Press newspaper when he learnt of the tragedy. He resolved to give up his job and worked with Maguire and Betty Williams to develop the campaign group. McKeown said at the time: “The community as a whole had got to the point where it was saying ‘enough is enough’: no matter what the problems are or were, violence only makes them worse.”

Soon known as Peace People, the group summed up its aims in its first declaration, which began: “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.”

Organising marches in Northern Ireland, Dublin and London, they brought thousands to the streets in their call for peace. The effect of their campaign was a significant decrease in violence in Northern Ireland over the years that followed, turning the province from the brink of civil war towards calmer times.

McKeown: ‘No matter what the problems are, violence only makes them worse’ (PA)

Williams and Maguire were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1976 and two years later McKeown became the first person from Northern Ireland to make a speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations. He remained with the organisation until February 1980, when differences over finances and leadership style came to a head.

McKeown retrained as a typesetter, working for a number of newspapers. He wrote the pamphlets The Person of Peace and The Price of Peace and the book The Passion of Peace (1984), in which he recalled the beginnings of Peace People.

As political correspondent of Belfast daily the News Letter during the 1990s, he wrote editorials promoting moves towards peace and on the reform of policing in Northern Ireland. The group’s work was the subject of a 2016 BBC documentary The Peace People.

His wife Marianne McKeown (nee McVeigh), whom he had met during his student years, died in 2012. He is survived by seven children.

Ciaran McKeown, journalist, writer and campaigner, born 19 January 1943, died 1 September 2019