Peacemaker Trimble’s death marks an era in Northern Ireland’s history

Northern Ireland has lost its former prime minister, David Trimble, at the age of 77, after a career in which he accomplished a historic peace agreement, setting an example of a politician capable of pushing for compromises in times of sharp division.
Late on Monday night, Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party announced the death of the former prime minister, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in concluding the 1998 agreement that ended three decades of conflict in the United Kingdom.
The party said in a statement that Trimble “died peacefully earlier Monday after a short period of illness,” without providing additional details in this regard. This departure marks a key period in Northern Ireland’s contemporary history.
Trimble led his Protestant party, which supports strengthening ties with London, into tough negotiations with the Catholic Republicans, culminating in the “Good Friday Agreement” that ended nearly three decades of bloody sectarian tension.
That same year, Trimble shared the Nobel Peace Prize with his Republican counterpart, John Hume, for their roles in concluding a peace agreement that ended a conflict that killed 3,500 people. According to his biographer Andrew Roth, Trimble was like someone “a tightrope performer who astonished his followers with his ability to oscillate between radical Protestant sectarianism and moderate centrist”.
Principle and flexibility
William David Trimble was born on October 15, 1944, into a middle-class family in Bangor, Northern Ireland. He was known in his childhood for his shy nature and passion for reading and studying. He was accepted into the Queen’s University in Belfast; He obtained a law degree in 1968, and entered the Bar the following year. He became involved in politics in 1975 representing South Belfast in the regional government for the Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party. Divided over a possible alliance with Republican rivals, Trimble aligned himself with the deal’s proponents, signaling that his unitary convictions were being accompanied by a pragmatic compromise. In 1978, he joined the Ulster Unionist Party. In 1990, he was among the crowd that rose from the roof of the party’s headquarters in Belfast, to disrupt the visit of Irish Prime Minister John Hohe. In the same year, he was elected to the British Parliament for the party of which he became its leader after five years (1995). Journalist John Mallen wrote that “nationalists viewed Trimble as a unitary mentality”, a position that did not change “an iota”.
Despite all the heavy legacy of the conflict, Trimble was the first unitary leader to enter negotiations with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army. Trimble led the Unionists through eight months of negotiations, culminating in the Good Friday Agreement that established a participatory regional government and ended military and paramilitary operations for all parties. In the period before the agreement was put to a referendum, Trimble put his unitary tally to support the campaign for popular approval. He appeared on stage with Hume during a concert, in a moment seen as pivotal in making the agreement’s victory in the referendum almost certain. However, his support for peace did not end his personal hatred of the nationalists. He is credited with describing Jerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, who is believed to have also been a member of the Republican Army, as “the most disgusting person I have ever met.”
A house with many difficulties
His push for peace made him enemies on his side; Many unionists considered him to have betrayed the cause for which they had fought. Despite all this, Trimble became the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland under the new government formula, and shared with Hume the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998. After receiving the award, he considered that “Ulster Unitarians, lest they become isolated on the island, built a solid house, but it was Too cold for the Catholics.” He added, “It seemed to us that the northern nationalists, though they had a roof over their heads, wanted to burn this house down.” The task was not easy in the common house. The executive and legislative branches have often clashed over the IRA’s pledge to disarm, a task completed in 2005. He left office in 2002 as the legislature was suspended over an alleged IRA-linked spy network operating in Parliament.
Three years later, he lost his seat in the United Kingdom Parliament, but gained a rank in the House of Lords; He moved to the Conservative Party in 2006. In 2019 he admitted that he had to change his views on same-sex marriage after his daughter’s relationship with her girlfriend, in an additional step that reflected the ability of a statesman to change the course of his positions to match the changing course of history.
(agencies)