David Trimble

William David Trimble, Baron Trimble, (15 October 1944 – 25 July 2022) was a Northern Irish statesman and politician who was the inaugural First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998 to 2002 and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005. He was also Member of Parliament (MP) for Upper Bann from 1990 to 2005 and Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Upper Bann from 1998 to 2007.

Trimble began his career teaching law at The Queen's University of Belfast in the 1970s, during which time he began to get involved with the paramilitary-linked Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party (VPUP). He was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975 and joined the UUP in 1978 after the VPUP disbanded. He did not stand again for the Assembly, which finally reconvened in 2007, instead leaving the UUP to join the Conservative Party.

Early life and education

William David Trimble was born in the Wellington Park Nursing Home, Belfast on 15 October 1944. He was the son of William and Ivy Trimble, lower-middle class Presbyterians who lived in Bangor, County Down. His mother's first cousin, Jack Colhoun, was Mayor of Derry from 1957 to 1961, and sat as an ex-officio Senator of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

He attended Bangor Grammar School from 1956 to 1963. He then studied at Queen's University of Belfast (QUB) from 1964 to 1968, where he was awarded the McKane Medal for Jurisprudence.

Trimble's paternal grandfather George was born in Easkey, County Sligo, to parents William Trimble and Mary Burns.

Early career

Academic career

Trimble qualified as a barrister in 1969. He began that year as a Queen's University of Belfast lecturer, subsequently becoming Assistant Dean of the law faculty from 1973 to 1975, a senior lecturer in 1977 and head of Commercial and Property Law from 1981 to 1989. He resigned from the university in 1990 when he was elected to Parliament. In 1974, he was a legal adviser to the Ulster Workers' Council during the successful UWC strike against the Sunningdale Agreement.

Trimble was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention in 1975 as a Vanguard member for Belfast South and, for a time, served as the party's joint deputy leader, along with the Ulster Defence Association's Glenn Barr. The party had been established by Bill Craig to oppose sharing power with Irish Nationalists and to prevent closer ties with the Republic of Ireland; however, Trimble was one of those to back Craig when the party split over Craig's proposal to allow voluntary power sharing with the SDLP.

Trimble joined the mainstream Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in 1978 after Vanguard disbanded and was elected one of the four party secretaries. He served as chairman of the UUP Legal Committee from 1989 to 1995 and as honorary secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council in 1990–96. He was one of the few British politicians who urged support for the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the civil war in the 1990s.

Trimble's election as Leader came in the aftermath of his role in the Drumcree conflict, in which he led a controversial 1995 Orange Order Protestant march, amidst Nationalist protest, down the predominantly Catholic nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown, County Armagh. Many Irish Catholics viewed it as insensitive, while many Protestants felt that it was a sign that Trimble was defending them.

In the subsequent All-Party negotiations, Trimble led the UUP delegation and sat at the table with Sinn Féin, though in the eight months of the negotiations he never spoke directly to their leader, Gerry Adams. On 22 May 1998, voters in Northern Ireland approved the agreement, with 71 per cent in favour.

First Minister of Northern Ireland

thumb|upright|Trimble in Washington, D.C., 2001

Trimble was elected on 25 June 1998 as a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly for Upper Bann.

Trimble resigned as First Minister on 1 July 2001 due to the continuing impasse arising from the IRA's refusal of his demands that it decommission its arms, as per the commitments all parties had signed up to in section 7 pt. 3 (page 25) of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement but he was re-elected on 5 November 2001

In 1998, Tony Blair announced a new judicial inquiry, the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, into the killing of 13 unarmed civil rights marchers in Derry in 1972. A previous investigation, the Widgery Tribunal, into the same event had been discredited. During the debate in the House of Commons, Trimble was one of few dissenting voices. He said: "I am sorry to have to say to the Prime Minister that I think that the hope expressed by the Honourable Member for Foyle that this will be part of the healing process is likely to be misplaced. Opening old wounds like this is likely to do more harm than good. The basic facts of the situation are known and not open to dispute." Reporting in 2010, the Saville Inquiry confirmed that all of the 13 killings and 13 woundings were unjustified.

During a meeting with Blair in 2001, Trimble questioned the impartiality of judge Sir Brian Kerr, later chief justice of Northern Ireland and a Law Lord appointed to the Supreme Court. This evidence and comments made about other public figures contradicts what Trimble's biographer considered a "lack of personal bigotry against Catholics".

Peerage

thumb|upright|Trimble in 2009

At the general elections of 2005, Trimble was defeated in Upper Bann by the DUP's David Simpson in his bid for re-election to Parliament in Westminster.

On 11 April 2006, it was revealed that Trimble would take a seat in the House of Lords as a working life peer. On 21 May 2006 it was announced that he had chosen the geographical designation Lisnagarvey, the original name for his adopted home town of Lisburn. Subsequently, on 2 June 2006, he was created Baron Trimble, of Lisnagarvey in the County of Antrim. Eight months later, he confirmed that he would be standing down from the Northern Ireland Assembly at the next election.

Trimble announced on 17 April 2007 that he had decided to join the Conservative Party in order to have greater influence in politics in the United Kingdom. In the end, however, Trimble was not offered any governmental or front bench position following the formation of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government.

In May 2010, Trimble joined the Friends of Israel Initiative, a non-Jewish international project supporting Israel's right to exist. The initiative, started by former prime minister of Spain José María Aznar, also included former United States Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton, British historian Andrew Roberts and former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo. On 29 January 2013, Trimble and Aznar co-wrote an article in The Times condemning Hezbollah and calling on European governments to list it as a terrorist organisation.

In 2016, Trimble supported the Leave side in the UK referendum on EU membership. He said that if he had ever had any doubts about the issue, "his eight years on the EU Select Committees in the House of Lords – which scrutinise the EU's operations – had convinced him of the need to cut ties with Brussels". He cited a study which found that economic growth in the UK reduced after the decision to enter the Common Market and reduced further when the UK went into the Single Market.

Turkel Commission of Inquiry

thumb|right|upright=0.95|Routes of [[Ships of Gaza flotilla raid|Gaza-bound flotilla (green) and Israeli Navy (orange)]]

On 14 June 2010, Trimble was appointed an observer to the Israeli special independent public Turkel Commission of Inquiry into the Gaza flotilla raid.

On the commission were former Israeli Supreme Court Justice, Jacob Turkel, and former Technion University President, Amos Horev, as well two other members added in July 2010. (Bar Ilan University Professor of International Law Shabtai Rosenne also served on the commission from its establishment until his death on 21 September 2010.) In addition, the commission had two foreign observers, Trimble and former head of the Canadian military's judiciary, Judge Advocate General, Ken Watkin, who took part in hearings and discussions, but did not vote on the final conclusions. The panel, in January 2011, concluded both Israel's naval blockade of Gaza and the interception of the flotilla "were found to be legally pursuant to the rules of international law".

Personal life

Trimble married firstly Heather McComb, a work colleague in the Land Registry, on 6 September 1968 at Donaghadee Church of Ireland church. Their twin sons were born prematurely and did not survive. In 1976 the couple divorced. Two years later, on 31 August 1978, he married a former student of his, Daphne Elizabeth (née Orr) in Warrenpoint Methodist Church. They had two sons and two daughters (Richard, Victoria, Nicholas and Sarah). before standing unsuccessfully in the UK parliamentary election of May 2010 for the Conservatives and Unionists in Lagan Valley.

His son Nicholas was active within the Ulster Unionist Party and serving on the Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council at the time of his father's death. Nicholas Trimble was co-opted in 2016 to replace Alexander Redpath as a Councillor representing Downshire West on Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council.

Trimble admitted in July 2019 that he was "forced" to change his position on same-sex marriage and partnerships after voting against them, because of his lesbian daughter Vicky, who married her girlfriend Rosalind Stephens in Scotland in 2017. He told peers in the House of Lords "I cannot change that, and I cannot now go around saying that I am opposed to it because I acquiesced to it. There we are."

In 2021 Trimble was diagnosed with mixed dementia, a combination of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, and in early 2022 with lung cancer. He died of community-acquired pneumonia in the Ulster Hospital, Dundonald.

Lord Trimble died on 25 July 2022. The Nobel Institute noted: <blockquote>As the leader of the traditionally predominant party in Northern Ireland, David Trimble showed great political courage when, at a critical stage of the process, he advocated solutions which led to the [Belfast (Good Friday)] peace agreement.

In 2002, Trimble was awarded the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

Selected works

Books

Articles

Notes and references

External links

David Trimble's official website

David Trimble bio Northern Ireland Assembly (Archived)
Lord Trimble
The Search for Peace: David Trimble BBC News
Maiden Speech : House of Commons – 23 May 1990 UK Parliament
David Trimble Biography and Interview with American Academy of Achievement