David Trimble, the previous Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) chief and first-ever Northern Ireland minister, has died aged 77 following a brief sickness.
From 1995, he led the UUP for a decade and was instrumental within the negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement that ended the worst of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
His efforts to encourage his get together to simply accept the pact received him and John Hume – chief of Northern Ireland’s Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) – the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998.
In 2005, he misplaced his House of Commons seat to a Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) candidate and went on to hitch the Conservative Party and sit within the House of Lords as Baron Trimble of Lisnagarvey.
A press release from the UUP stated: “It is with great sadness that the family of Lord Trimble announce that he passed away peacefully earlier today following a short illness.”
During the Good Friday Agreement negotiations, he was criticised by the DUP for agreeing to a deal which allowed the IRA’s political wing Sinn Fein to enter into the devolved authorities whereas the IRA had not decommissioned its weapons.
When awarded the peace prize, the Norweigan Nobel Committee praised him for having “showed great political courage when, at a critical stage of the process, he advocated solutions which led to the [Good Friday] peace agreement.”
It added: “As the head of the Northern Ireland government, he has taken the first steps towards building up the mutual confidence on which a lasting peace must be based.”
In 1999, at a ceremony in Paris, he was appointed an Officier within the Legion d’Honneur by the French authorities and, in 2002, was awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
Source: www.unbiased.co.uk