The unionist politician David Trimble, Lord Trimble, who was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1998 jointly with the nationalist leader John Hume, embodied the complexity of the violent sectarian world of Northern Ireland.
The Nobel organisation described Trimble, who has died aged 77 following a short illness, as a “seeker of compromise” who had once been known “for his implacable stance towards Catholics” and praised his “political bravery” in working towards the peace agreement that had been signed on Good Friday that year. In the elections under the power-sharing constitution that resulted from it he was made first minister, and served until 2002.
