TRIMBLE, WILLIAM DAVID

born October 15, 1944, Belfast, Northern Ireland first minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly from 1998, leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and member of the British Parliament (for Upper Bann) since 1990. In 1998 Trimble and John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. While a professor of law at Queen's University of Belfast, Trimble was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention for the Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party (VUPP) in 1975. The VUPP opposed direct rule of Northern Ireland by the British government and pushed for stringent measures against the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Trimble became deputy leader of the VUPP, supporting a coalition with the SDLP. In 1977 he joined the Official (now Ulster) Unionist Party, eventually becoming an executive member of the UUP and a member of the British Parliament in 1990. He succeeded James Molyneaux as leader of the UUP in 1995, defeating the pre-election favourite, John Taylor. Trimble's election was regarded as a victory for the right wing of the UUP, primarily because of his association with Ian Paisley, the militant leader of the Ulster Democratic Unionist Party. In 1995 Trimble negotiated a compromise that permitted the Orange Order, a Protestant fraternal organization, to march through the Roman Catholic neighbourhood of Portadown. After the march, Trimble and Paisley were seen celebrating their victory over Catholic residents. Despite his association with hard-line Unionists, Trimble proved willing to depart from traditional Unionist demands when he represented the UUP in multiparty peace talks beginning in September 1997. These talks, which included members of Sinn Fin, the political wing of the IRA, culminated in the Good Friday Agreement (April 1998) on steps aimed at restoring self-government in Northern Ireland. Defying opposition from Paisley and the DUP as well as the conservative wing of his own party, Trimble signed the agreement and was later vindicated when it was accepted in referenda passed in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic in May. In elections for the new Northern Ireland Assembly held the following month, the UUP won the largest number of seats, and Trimble was subsequently elected first minister. Conflict over the timing and extent of IRA decommissioning (disarmament) blocked implemention of the Good Friday Agreement until Trimble, buoyed by IRA concessions, convinced the Ulster Unionist Council, the UUP's governing body, to allow him to share governmental authority with Sinn Fin in 1999 and again in 2000. Paul Arthur Kimberly Cowell-Meyers