Lord David Trimble, a key architect of the Good Friday Agreement who defied opposition from his community to help bring peace to Northern Ireland almost a quarter of a century ago, has died after a short illness. He was 77.
Tributes have poured in since his death on Monday for the courage of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former leader of Ulster’s then-dominant Unionist Party, who became Northern Ireland’s first minister since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Sir Tony Blair, the UK prime minister who signed the peace accord, said Trimble’s contribution was “enormous. It wouldn’t have happened without him.”
Former US President Bill Clinton, whose eleventh-hour phone calls with Trimble and other key figures saved the deal, said: “At times during the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement, he made the hard choices over the politically expedient ones because he believed that future generations must grow up free from violence and hatred.
A lawyer by training, known to be shy and determined, if sometimes grumpy and with a fierce temper, Trimble called the Good Friday Agreement – which marks its 25th anniversary next April – “the greatest thing in my life”.
The deal ended three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland between nationalist paramilitaries fighting to end British rule and loyalist gunmen fighting to keep the region part of the United Kingdom.
Although enduring divisions remain, with the institutions created by the Good Friday Agreement currently paralyzed in a political row over post-Brexit trade deals, the agreement marked a watershed moment.
“David faced enormous challenges when he led the Ulster Unionist Party in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations and convinced his party to join him,” Gerry Adams said. As leader of Sinn Féin – then widely regarded as the political wing of the paramilitary IRA – Adams was key to securing hard-line republican support for the deal.
Trimble’s contribution “can’t be understated,” Adams said, adding that the two have met many times and gotten to know each other quite well.
Trimble notably threw down the gauntlet in 1997 when he narrowly won his party’s agreement to power-sharing even before the IRA decommissioned its weapons. He told the Sinn Fein leader: “We have made our contribution. Mr. Adams, it’s over for you. We jumped; you follow.”
From left: Gerry Adams, John Hume, Bill Clinton and David Trimble at the White House in March 2000 © Susan Walsh/AP
Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach of Ireland at the time of the agreement, said simply: “If David does not deliver [Ulster] Unionist Party with him, then we had no agreement.”
In sentiments echoed by politicians across the region and in Ireland, Michael Higgins, Ireland’s president, said Trimble had earned a “distinguished and well-deserved place in our history books”.
Sir Geoffrey Donaldson, who defected from the UUP and whose Democratic Unionist Party is now the biggest pro-British force in Northern Ireland, hailed Trimble’s determination despite the “significant risk to his safety. . . Undoubtedly, it can be said that he shaped the history of our country”.
Lord Peter Mandelson, Labour’s former secretary of state for Northern Ireland, said Trimble faced “pain and struggles” in implementing the deal.
“All the while he faced endless attack from people in his own community – I know because we faced many of these audiences together – and in the end he didn’t budge. He was a brave man who earned his place in history.
A canal boat enthusiast with a wry sense of humor who adored Elvis Presley and Wagner, Trimble entered politics with the small loyalist Vanguard Party in the 1970s. His career took off after he was elected to Westminster for the UUP in 1990.
He gained notoriety by leading the controversial Drumcree parade by the loyalist Orange Order in 1995. After clashes in previous years, the parade went ahead after a tense standoff and Trimble held hands in the air with then DUP leader Ian Paisley in what some saw as as a triumphant gesture.
He became the surprise leader of the UUP later that year, eventually charting a course from hardliner to peacemaker. Trimble’s reward for the peace settlement, however, was the loss of his seat at Westminster. He was defeated by more than 5,000 votes in 2005 and the UUP’s support collapsed, prompting him to resign as party leader.
Trimble backed British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, which has sparked the current political unrest. In May, he wrote in the Daily Telegraph that it was “London’s responsibility to protect Northern Ireland’s future and replace this damaging and divisive protocol” – a reference to the controversial Northern Ireland trade deals.
Accepting the Nobel Prize in 1998, which he shared with John Hume, the late leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party, Trimble said he had sometimes been accused of lacking “vision”.
He hailed “politicians of the possible. . . who seek to make a working peace not in some perfect world that never existed, but in this flawed world that is our only workshop”.
Add Comment