Tony Blair hails Trimble's legacy of peace in Northern Ireland

Belfast

David Trimble, Northern Ireland's Nobel peace prize-winning former first minister, has died at the age of 77, his Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) said on Monday.

Trimble helped forge the landmark 1998 peace deal in the troubled UK province which ended decades of conflict, and won the prize along with his republican counterpart John Hume that year.

Following his death, Former UK prime minister Tony Blair on Tuesday praised the "immense" contribution of Trimble to ending conflict in Northern Ireland.

Trimble won a Nobel peace prize for his role in the landmark 1998 peace deal that helped end three decades of conflict in Northern Ireland.

Political tension

Northern Ireland is again enduring political tension. Its Stormont assembly was meant to reconvene Tuesday to try to end weeks of paralysis following elections, but that was postponed after Trimble's death.

Blair, whose government brokered the peace deal along with Ireland and the United States, said the peace could not have been achieved without Trimble's "masterclass of leadership".

"David was highly intelligent, very courageous," he told BBC radio.

Asked to summarise his contribution, the former UK leader said it was "immense".

"The hardest thing in leadership is to say no to your own supporters. He did it and he carried it. He paid a political price, but he never complained," Blair added.

‘Leader of courage’

Former US president Bill Clinton said Trimble was "a leader of courage, vision". 

"His legacy will endure in all who are living better lives because of him today," Clinton said in a statement.

Trimble's death following a short illness was announced by his UUP on Monday. 

No further details were given about the death of a politician who, despite his staunch pro-UK convictions, worked with Irish nationalists to end the three decades of bloodshed known as the "Troubles". 

'Giant'

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Trimble as a "giant of British and international politics".  

Irish premier Micheal Martin hailed the Nobel laureate as "someone who played a crucial and courageous role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland".

At the seat of Northern Ireland's devolved government on Tuesday afternoon, UUP leader Doug Beattie laid a wreath of white and deep purple flowers beneath a portrait of Trimble which hangs in the Stormont assembly's Great Hall.

Beattie praised his predecessor as a "great unionist" and a "great politician".

"As frail as he'd become in the last number of months, there was a fire in his eyes for politics. There was a fire in his eyes for peace in Northern Ireland, and there was a fire in his eyes to try and heal the divisions which blighted to this part of the United Kingdom," Beattie told reporters.

Good Friday Agreement

Sinn Fein's Michelle O'Neill, in line to be Northern Ireland's next first minister after her nationalist party swept to a historic victory in the May elections, said Trimble was "pivotal" in securing the Good Friday Agreement.

She said the "precious gift of peace" Trimble had helped midwife with the 1998 accords was something her generation "all hold very dear".

"That should be a message to us all even today, 24 years later. It takes courage. It takes leadership. It takes parties working together actually to achieve things," the Sinn Fein vice president said.

'Greater good'

O'Neill's accession is being held up by the now-dominant pro-UK force, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which is refusing to serve with Sinn Fein in the power-sharing executive until London rips up a post-Brexit trading pact with the European Union.

The UK government is pushing through legislation to unilaterally rewrite the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, sparking legal action by the EU.

But the DUP has still refused to enter the power-sharing government.

The UUP also opposes the protocol. But at his final public appearance at the end of June, Trimble said the cornerstone of peace remained in place.

"People are actually not throwing the (Good Friday) agreement to pieces, their complaints are still based on the existence of the agreement," Trimble said at the unveiling of a portrait of him.

Ended 30 years of conflict

The 1998 Good Friday accord largely ended 30 years of conflict in Northern Ireland that killed 3,500 people.

Following the 1998 deal, Trimble served as first minister of Northern Ireland.

Former UUP leader Mike Nesbitt told AFP that with the loss of Trimble, the generation of leaders — including pro-Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume — that delivered peace in Northern Ireland had now passed.

"These are the people who understood the concept of the greater good, who were prepared to say I will put the priorities of the people over party political interest. 

"That was the foundation on which the Belfast, Good Friday agreement was made. And that's what's missing today at Stormont," he added.