David Trimble
David Trimble led Ulster Unionism into the Good Friday Agreement and shared the Nobel Peace Prize for it. Born in Bangor, County Down in 1944, he read law at Queen's University Belfast and lectured there for two decades. His early politics were hardline. He was a member of the Vanguard movement in the 1970s, which opposed power-sharing and organised strikes against the 1974 Sunningdale agreement, and he supported a return to majority rule. He became a Member of Parliament for Upper Bann in 1990. In July 1995 he was photographed walking hand in hand with Ian Paisley through a nationalist area at Drumcree after a contested Orange Order parade was forced through, which made him a hero to unionists and won him the Ulster Unionist leadership that September. He then reversed his own trajectory. He led his party into the multi-party talks, accepted the presence of Sinn Féin, and signed the Belfast Agreement of April 1998 — accepting power-sharing with nationalists, a north-south council, and the release of paramilitary prisoners, in exchange for the Republic amending its territorial claim and the principle of consent being written in. He carried a divided party with him by a narrow margin, and became First Minister of Northern Ireland in 1998. He shared the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume. His problem was decommissioning: he had to sustain devolution while the IRA disarmed slowly, and he resigned in 2001 to force the issue. The institutions were suspended repeatedly. His party was overtaken by the DUP in 2003, and he lost his seat in 2005. He died in 2022.
- Lived: 1944 CE – 2022 CE
- Nationality: British
- Roles: politician
