David Trimble — a visionary and a colossus of public life

David Trimble, who has died aged 77, was one of the only politicians in Northern Ireland’s fairly short history to have achieved a global reputation.

The former Ulster Unionist leader and first minister of NI won a Nobel Peace Prize alongside John Hume for his role in securing the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

That deal split unionism down the middle in a schism that is still apparent today almost a quarter century later.

This newspaper supported the agreement strongly so naturally our admiration for its key unionist architect is immense.

But as the warm tribute to Lord Trimble from Jim Allister, the most enduring and effective of the anti agreement pro Union voices, demonstrates the ex Ulster Unionist Party chief had qualities that transcended that divide.

Unionists disagree bitterly on the merits and demerits of the 1998 accord yet the pluses were undeniable – and huge.

Almost the entirety of nationalist Ireland, including an Irish state that long had a territorial claim on Northern Ireland, accepted the principle of consent – that the constitutional status of here would never change without the approval of its citizens.

And the political wing of the IRA accepted Stormont, the abolition of which was one of its core ideological goals.

Power sharing has latterly been in trouble, but David Trimble was a visionary, even if, like all visionaries he could not know if his vision would prevail.

He moved decisively in 1998, a year after the good news of the second IRA ceasefire but 13 years after the disaster of the Anglo Irish Agreement.

Unionists certainly needed to do something. Years of drift had not been kind to their position.

David Trimble was a colossus of public life, who crowned his career in a settlement that sought to protect the Northern Ireland he loved.