Patricia Campbell

Patricia Campbell, an Irish mental health nurse and human rights activist, will receive the Passion for Peace award at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 22, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 22 East Chestnut Hill Ave.

The award, presented by the Middle East Study Group and the Episcopal Peace Fellowship, is given to individuals who have a history of activism for peace, justice and human rights. The event is free, and the public is invited.

A longtime human rights activist, Campbell is president of the Irish Independent Workers Union (IWU), an independent trade union and social movement in both the north and south of Ireland. She began her political activism more than three decades ago when she campaigned for the political status of Irish republican prisoners during the hunger strike in 1981 at Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland.

She also has campaigned for prisoners' rights, workers' rights, foreign nationals' rights, and for the rights of Palestinians.

The noted Irish fiddler Paraic Keane will perform prior to the award ceremony at 1:30 p.m. and again after the ceremony at a reception in the back of the church.

Previous recipients of the Passion for Peace award are the Rev. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest who founded the School of the America’s Watch and a 2010 Nobel Peace Prize nominee; Archbishop Elias Chacour, an author and cleric noted for his efforts to foster reconciliation among Jews and Arabs and a three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and Kathy Bergen, the former coordinator of the Friends International Center in Ramallah, for three decades of work in the Middle East and her lifetime commitment to peace and justice.