Former Northern Irish Prime Minister David Trimble died Monday, July 25, at the age of 77, the Ulster Unionist Party announced. “It is with great sadness that the family of Lord Trimble announce that he passed away earlier today [lundi] after a brief illness”the party said in a statement.
The politician had been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for having worked for reconciliation between Protestants and Catholics in the British province. This Protestant jurist who entered politics in the early 1970s in the ranks of the unionist Vanguard party, close to the paramilitaries, helped shape, a quarter of a century later, the Good Friday peace agreement with the Catholic John Hume, co-winner of the Nobel.
He led the first power-sharing government resulting from this agreement which settled three decades of bloody clashes between Republicans, mainly Catholics and supporters of the reunification of Ireland, and Unionists, mainly Protestants and defenders of the maintenance of the province. in the British Crown.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said “deeply saddened” by the death of Mr. Trimble, saluting the “bravery” why “giant of British and international politics”. “He will long be remembered for his intelligence, his personal bravery and his fierce determination to change politics for the better”said the conservative leader on Twitterestimate that “the legacy and its successes will never be forgotten by the people of the United Kingdom”.
Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said, for his part, “deeply saddened” by the death of Mr. Trimble. He praised on Twitter the “crucial and courageous role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland” played by the Nobel Peace Prize winner. “David was a big figure, who was instrumental in getting the deal done [du Vendredi saint] and in the creation of today’s Northern Ireland. My thoughts are with his family.”, tweeted the head of British diplomacy and Downing Street candidate, Liz Truss.
“David Trimble was a man of courage and vision. He chose to seize the opportunity for peace when it presented itself and sought to end the decades of violence that plagued his beloved Northern Ireland.also reacted the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Doug Beattie. “Very sad news. David Trimble was a prominent figure in Northern Irish and British politics.reacted the leader of the British opposition, Keir Starmer.
William David Trimble was born on October 15, 1944 to a middle-class family in Bangor, in the east of the British province of Northern Ireland. With a studious temperament, he obtained a law degree in 1968 at Queen’s University in Belfast, where he later taught.
First Unionist official to dialogue with Sinn Fein
Ironically, this great fan of Elvis Presley posed for a long time as an ardent defender of the hard line against Catholics, contributing to the failure of attempts at peace. In 1974, he was one of those protesting against the Sunningdale Agreement, the first draft of a political settlement of the Northern Irish question. In 1985, he opposed the Anglo-Irish agreement, another failed attempt.
After rubbing shoulders with the extremists of Vanguard, David Trimble joined the Ulster Unionist Party (UPP) in 1978 and took over as leader in 1995, five years after his first term as a member of the British Parliament in London. The election as head of the UPP of this eminent member of the Order of Orange, the most powerful Protestant brotherhood in the province, thanks to a very strong program, seems to make any negotiation with the opposing party impossible. .
“Trimble was seen by nationalists as (…) a bad-tempered, irascible Unionist, with a typical hard-nosed mentality”underlined in 1999 the British daily The Guardian. But Trimble thwarted the odds, cautiously heading to the negotiating table, with unsuspected pragmatism and political acumen.
In the autumn of 1997, after the ceasefire of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), he was the first Unionist official to start a dialogue with the Republicans of Sinn Fein, the political branch of the IRA – even if his leader Gerry Adams is “the most appalling human being[il ait] never met”. Once the peace agreement was signed, after months of intense discussions, he spared no effort to convince the Unionists who were crying treason to accept the historic compromise.
Partisan du Brexit
Three years after marching hand in hand with fundamentalist Ian Paisley during an Orange march, David Trimble shakes hands with Irish singer Bono (U2) and John Hume during a peace concert in Belfast that will help to the victory of the “yes” vote in the referendum on the Good Friday agreement.
But peace is not a long calm river and the sharing of power proves difficult. The issue of disarming the IRA – effective in 2005 – led to the suspension of regional institutions on four occasions, until their complete suspension in October 2002 for five years after allegations of espionage targeting members of Sinn Fein.
In 2005, David Trimble suffered a crushing defeat in the British legislative elections. He then joined the Conservative Party and the House of Lords. In 2019, this Brexit supporter and father of four children admitted in the Upper House to having reconsidered his opposition to same-sex marriage after the union of his eldest daughter with his partner.