Northern Ireland: Unionists in Northern Ireland have not always received the careful attention which their arguments have deserved. But at least there is now no shortage of books for those who would like to understand one of their ablest figures, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, David Trimble.
Impressive biographies by Henry McDonald and Dean Godson have now been followed by this compelling and reflective study, written by the distinguished Irish Times journalist, Frank Millar.
David Trimble: The Price of Peace was produced briskly on the basis of interviews with its subject during 2004. Its basic form is a kind of extended dialogue between author and interviewee, and its central purpose is made clear in the opening words of its first chapter: "What manner of man is David Trimble?" From this quite personal account he emerges as a thoughtful, precise man; eloquent, intelligent and reasonable; intense and rather shy.
What? A reasonable, intelligent unionist? Yes, for here's a unionist politician who has long recognised how important it is that Northern Ireland institutions should enjoy nationalist consent. Here's a man who wants to remould unionism into a less sectarian shape ("I think that it is a fatal mistake for unionism to reduce the issue in Northern Ireland to sectarian terms").
Above all, and despite what some republican critics have suggested, here is a man who keenly appreciated the need for a final deal between Ulster's two main political traditions. This book makes it clear that Trimble thinks the 1998 Belfast Agreement represents the essence of that deal: "That is what I said to [ Gerry] Adams the very first time we actually spoke. I told him that in my opinion this [ Good Friday] Agreement, the basic principles that are in this Agreement, give or take a little bit, is where the outcome is going to be."
For unionists, that deal was one which saw nationalist Ireland accept the consent principle, and one which allowed for militant Irish republicans to pursue broadly peaceful politics within an essentially partitionist framework. For nationalists, it offered the promise both of a transformation of the North, and of far deeper involvement in the future shaping of that part of the island. The 1998 deal has its flaws, but if there is a better broad outline for the future of Northern Ireland then it is difficult to identify it at present.
Whether or not Trimble remains a central player in Ulster politics, there is no doubting his pivotal role in both the production of the Good Friday Agreement (as Frank Millar rightly concludes, "they really could not have done it without David Trimble"), and also the unionist support which was essential to its early survival.
Trimble has famously annoyed some people during his career ("I do have to represent a viewpoint and that does involve occasionally telling people some home truths"). But he has recognised some important problems and priorities (referring elsewhere, for example, to the surely vital need for unionists "to engage with a degree of self-confidence"). And those who did applaud the Good Friday Agreement will come away from this highly readable and insightful book clearer in their minds about David Trimble's essential contribution to that Agreement's production and survival.
David Trimble: The Price of Peace By Frank Millar, The Liffey Press, 230pp. €15.95
Richard English is professor of politics at Queen's University, Belfast. His most recent book, Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, is published by Pan Macmillan