Irish Nobel prize-winner Mairead Corrigan Maguire was expelled from Israel on Tuesday morning after the Supreme Court ruled against an appeal to cancel the deportation order.

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch recommended that the government allow Ms Maguire to complete the scheduled visit but ruled that since she had entered the country despite knowing that she was banned, the deportation order was legal.

Ms Maguire, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for working towards achieving a peaceful solution to the "Troubles", participated in May 2010 in the attempt to reach Gaza on the Rachel Corrie boat. After the boat was commandeered by the Israeli Navy and taken to Ashdod Port, all those on it were forbidden to re-enter Israel for the next 10 years.

She was to take part in the Nobel Women's Initiative to visit Israel and the West Bank but the court accepted the state's claim that the organisers had warned Ms Maguire twice that she was banned from entering.

Ms Maguire claimed not to have known of the order.