born Oct. 15, 1944, Belfast, N.Ire.
Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in Northern Ireland and corecipient with John Hume of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1998.
He was elected to the British Parliament in 1990 and became leader of the UUP in 1995. He represented the UUP in multiparty peace talks beginning in September 1997. These talks, which included members of Sinn Féin , the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), culminated in the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, which aimed to restore self-government in Northern Ireland. Defying opposition from hard-line unionists, he signed the agreement and successfully campaigned for its acceptance in referenda in Northern Ireland and Ireland. In subsequent elections to the new Northern Ireland Assembly, he was elected first minister. Conflict with the IRA over decommissioning (disarmament) persisted and led to his resignation as first minister in 2001, though he returned to government later that year after decommissioning commenced.