Premier Johnson paid tribute to his life’s work. / Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble dead
Northern Ireland Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble is dead. The co-architect of the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland’s first head of government “died peacefully after a short illness” at the age of 77, his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said on Monday.
As head of the UUP, which advocates a union with Great Britain, Trimble campaigned against internal resistance for an agreement with the Catholic-Republican side in the 1990s. Together with the Catholic politician John Hume, he was instrumental in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ended the bloody conflict in Northern Ireland after decades. Trimble and Hume were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts that same year.
Trimble was the first UUP leader in 30 years to meet with the then Irish Prime Minister in Dublin as part of the peace process. In 1998 he became Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. He later sat in the British House of Commons in London and from 2006 in the British House of Lords.
“A man of courage and foresight” / David Trimble dead
Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised Trimble as “a giant of British and international politics”. Trimble will be “long remembered for his intellect, personal courage and fierce determination to change politics for the better,” Johnson wrote on Twitter.
Ireland’s Prime Minister Micheál Martin hailed Trimble’s “decisive and courageous role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland”. Michelle O’Neill of the Sinn Féin party, which is to be Northern Ireland’s next leader, said Trimble had made a “very significant contribution to the peace process”.
Current UUP leader Doug Beattie said: “David Trimble was a man of courage and vision. He chose to seize the opportunity for peace when it presented itself and sought to end the decades of violence that plagued his beloved Northern Ireland .” His death caused deep sadness.
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