John Cushnahan: David Trimble was a unique and complex individual

He was a unique and complex individual. He had a distinguished academic legal career, teaching law at Queens University, Belfast in the early 1970s and held the post of Assistant Dean of the Law Faculty between 1973 and 1975.

He first entered the world of politics by joining Bill Craig’s Vanguard Party. The Vanguard Party had strong links with loyalist paramilitaries and he stood unsuccessfully for that party in the constituency of North Down in the 1973 Assembly Election.

It was this election that paved the way for the establishment of Northern Ireland’s first power-sharing executive under the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974.

The Vanguard Party along with two unionist parties led by Ian Paisley and Harry West and loyalist paramilitaries joined together to form the Ulster Workers’ Council (UWC) to oppose the Sunningdale Agreement.

The strike that was organised by the UWC was successful in bringing it down. During this period, Trimble had acted as a legal adviser to the UWC,

In May 1975, he was elected to the Northern Ireland Constitutional Convention for the constituency of Belfast South. Following his successful election, Bill Craig appointed both David and fellow UWC leader (and also the leader of the UDA) Glen Barr as Joint deputy leaders of Vanguard.

Following the collapse of the Sunningdale Power-Sharing Agreement, the Constitutional Convention had been established to find a new political settlement that could obtain more widespread acceptance than the Sunningdale experiment.

Unsurprisingly, it failed to achieve this. However, what was remarkable about its proceedings was that during the discussions, Bill Craig supported by David Trimble proposed the concept of a voluntary power-sharing coalition with the SDLP as the basis for moving forward.

This was a remarkably courageous ‘volte-face’ by Craig and Trimble which, if explored further, could well have resulted in a measure of political progress at the time. However, Paisley was vehemently opposed to it.

But when I discussed this issue in a conversation that I had with David at Westminster in 2014, he felt that it was the intervention of the leading SDLP figure in the convention, Ivan Cooper that was more instrumental in killing the idea stone dead than Paisley’s opposition.

In rejecting the proposal, Cooper had demanded ‘copper-fastened’ guarantees.

When the Vanguard party disbanded, David joined the Ulster Unionist Party in 1978. He was elected to Westminster in 1990 as MP for the Upper Bann constituency and resigned from the law faculty of Queens University.

Following the resignation of Jim Molyneaux as leader of the Unionist Party, Trimble was elected to succeed him in September 1995. There were five candidates for the post, Ken Maginnis (MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone), William Ross (MP for East Londonderry), Martin Smyth MP for South Belfast, John Taylor (MP for Strangford) and as well as Trimble himself. John Taylor was regarded as the favourite but Trimble surprised them all.

A key factor in his success was his involvement in the Drumcree controversy, when he marched arm in arm with Ian Paisley, jointly leading an Orange Order protest march down the catholic and nationalist Garvaghy Road in Portadown despite strong nationalist opposition to it.

However, just as he had done in the 1975 Constitutional Convention as well as adopting a hard-line stance, he could equally display acts of political courage which totally confused his critics.

Shortly after his election as leader, he became the first Unionist leader (since Terence O Neill) in 30 years to engage in discussions with an Irish Taoiseach in Dublin and also indicated his willingness to engage in talks with Sinn Fein in a locally elected Assembly, provided the IRA lay down their arms.

These gestures helped pave the way for the negotiations that led to the Good Friday Agreement.

There were many politicians who were responsible for this historic achievement. Alongside the many positive inputs from London, Dublin, and Washington the efforts of the north’s politicians were also of critical importance.

The commitment and tenacity of John Hume especially his decision to enter dialogue with Sinn Fein/IRA in the face of unjustified personal criticism; the political courage of David Trimble in the face of vicious personal attacks from Paisley and opposition within some elements in his own party; the willingness of Gerry Adams and loyalist paramilitary leaders to choose political dialogue instead of violence coupled with the efforts of those who toiled long and hard for reconciliation and kept hope alive in the darkest of times — all their efforts combined together to deliver that historic agreement on April 10th, 1998.

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to John Hume and David Trimble was well deserved. Senator George Mitchell encapsulated their joint achievement accurately and succinctly when he said “Without John Hume, there would not have been a peace process, without David Trimble, there would not have been an agreement.”

Now both of them have passed, just as we remembered the contribution of John Hume when he died, we must equally acknowledge the contribution of David Trimble.

The peoples of these islands are deeply indebted to both of them for the contribution they both made.

Our deepest sympathies at this sad time go to David’s widow, Daphne, and his children Richard Victoria, Nicholas, and Sarah.

May he rest In Peace.

• John Cushnahan is a former Alliance Party politician 1974-87 and Fine Gael MEP 1989 – 2004