Dean Godson - Himself Alone - David Trimble and the Ordeal Of Unionism

Such activities, which were widely reported, can have done little to endear Trimble to the authorities at his workplace. The Queen’s of the 1980s was very different place from the Queen’s of the 1960s and 1970s. Political activism, once regarded as a public service, was now seen as less of an asset. It was not merely that the controversy-aversive University was determined to avoid a repetition of the killing of Edgar Graham for Trimble’s own sake; it was also because under the cumulative impact of fair employment legislation designed to eradicate sectarianism in the workplace, the University had become far more sensitive to such matters and its ‘image’. A campaign had been launched primarily (but not exclusively by nationalists) to allege that there was religious discrimination in the composition of the teaching staff. Most of them were Protestants – if not necessarily from Ulster – whilst the undergraduate population was ever-more Catholic. It thus echoed recent allegations contained in the MacPherson report that the Metropolitan Police is ‘institutionally racist’. In the words of Alex Attwood, who was president of the Students’ Union in the early 1980s and subsequently vice chairman of Convocation (a body comprised of all graduates) ‘Queen’s succeeded Short’s as the representative employment management issue in the North’. 41 Queen’s responded by settling many cases out of court.

Although Trimble was never sued for harassment or discrimination (nor, indeed, was any complaint ever lodged against him) his face did not fit in this not-so-brave new world of pious neutrality. He says that Colin Campbell bluntly told him that he would never hold a professorial chair; Campbell says that he simply gave Trimble the advice which he gave to all colleagues at that stage in their careers – that Trimble would not obtain a professorship unless he increased his output of published materials. 42 As editor of the Northern Ireland Law Reports, he would be summarising and synthesising, rather than doing original work of his own. What is beyond doubt is that Trimble did not fulfil his ambitions. The first chair which came up – to replace the departing Campbell – went to Simon Lee, a ‘superstar’ academic with good media credentials, and the second to his old friend Herb Wallace. Wallace, for example, also came from a unionist background, but he was not an active politician and he was thought less likely to blow his top in a crisis. Trimble also believes that his political commitments may have played a part: as Iain Macleod observed of R.A. Butler, ‘Rab loves being a politician among academics and an academic among politicians; that is why neither breed of man likes him all that much.’ 43

Professorial chairs were not, though, the only avenue for advancement. In 1986, the post of Dean of the Law Faculty came vacant – an administrative post that involved much persuasion and cajoling. Normally, elections went uncontested and Trimble seemed to be certain of winning: indeed, to make absolutely sure of things, Trimble authorised Herb Wallace, as his unofficial campaign manager, to say that if elected, he would cease all active politics. Colin Campbell, the Pro-Vice Chancellor, asked Judith Eve, a colleague of Trimble’s from the Law Faculty to run. According to Herb Wallace, Campbell might have viewed Trimble’s political activities as detracting from the Law Faculty’s reputation (a third candidate, Geoffrey Hornsey, also entered the contest though he soon withdrew). 44 In the ensuing battle royal, the ‘jurisprudes’ formed the core of the anti-Trimble camp, whilst the ‘black letter’ lawyers of his own department were the core of the pro-Trimble operation. Trimble was the more senior, and had more administrative experience, but the elegant Eve was viewed as the ‘safer pair of hands’. ‘She was cooler, and without moods,’ recalls Sylvia Hermon, then – as now – one of Trimble’s most ardent supporters. The election was so close a contest that postal votes from faculty members travelling abroad were solicited, yet the Trimble camp still thought they had the edge. One morning, Sylvia Hermon came in and picked up the News Letter : there, she found Trimble pictured on the front page, tied to the railings at Hillsborough Castle as part of an Ulster Clubs’ protest against the intergovernmental conference. 45 ‘Short of raping the vice-chancellor’s wife on the front gates of the university, he could not have done much worse,’ wryly recalls Brian Childs, a colleague in the department of commercial and property law. 46 It may have been decisive, for Eve scraped home by 18 votes to 16, with one abstention.

Trimble’s friends began to despair of his prospects. Trimble, though, was not to be deterred for long. Some months later, the post of the director of the Institute for Professional Legal Studies became available. The Institute was part of Queen’s, but was independent of the Law Faculty and was governed by the Council for Legal Education. It had been set up in 1977 for professional training of law graduates. 47 Again, he seemed to have all the experience and duly applied; and, once again, a presentable younger woman entered the field. Her name was Mary McAleese, a Belfast-born Catholic, the 36-year-old Reid Professor of Criminal Law at Trinity College Dublin. 48 Her publications portfolio may have been less voluminous than compared to that of Trimble, but she had two skills which he conspicuously lacked: she marketed herself superbly and was immensely adept with people. The 10-strong interview panel was chaired by Lord Justice O’Donnell, who led the questioning. He was assisted by Lord Justice Kelly, who as Basil Kelly had been Unionist MP for Mid-Down at Stormont and was the last Attorney General of Northern Ireland under the ancien régime. Trimble performed poorly, whilst McAleese dealt with the questions adeptly and she was duly appointed. 49 The upward trajectory of McAleese’s career was maintained and she later became Pro-Vice Chancellor. In 1997, she received the Fianna Fail nomination for the presidency of the Republic and won the election.

Trimble’s record of disappointment in university politics contrasts very sharply with his successes since his election to Parliament in 1990. ‘The difference between university politics and party politics is that university politics are a closed hierarchical system, whereas party politics are open,’ he explains. ‘In terms of the UUP, oddly, my position wasn’t very different from that at Queen’s. During the Upper Bann by-election, very few unionist figures were favourable to me. I thus came in 1990, and more particularly in the 1995 leadership race as an outsider. The great thing about politics is that they are decided by wider groups. My position vis-à-vis the Unionist hierarchy was just the same as vis-à-vis the Queen’s hierarchy.’ So why does he have such bad relations with his academic and political peer groups? ‘It’s my lack of diplomatic skill,’ Trimble declares. ‘I know that’s a rather big failing. I’m argumentative by nature and get into arguments without any consideration as to who they are with and the career implications. As I get older my arguments are couched in less aggressive terms. From the point of the view of the “Good Ole’ Boys” in Glengall Street [the tightly knit clique of men who ran the party headquarters in central Belfast for years] I’m never one of them. I come from the outside and I’m a bit too ready to tell them what they should do.’ 50

TRIMBLE’S self-analysis was shared by many of his party colleagues. In early 1989, he was finally elected one of four honorary party secretaries at a meeting of the 860-strong Ulster Unionist Council – yet his problems with his peer group endured. What his coevals immediately saw was a man in a hurry. ‘I was brought up by Jo Cunningham [later party president] that you listened for the first year,’ recalls Jack Allen, the long-time party treasurer. ‘David could never be accused of doing that.’ 1 Likewise, Jim Wilson, the party general-secretary recalls: ‘He had little time for convention and the rule book – because in the rule book you find reasons for not doing things. I suppose at that time I thought, “Hey, David you’re not going to fit in here, you’re rocking too many boats.” And he was also suspected of leaking officers’ decisions.’ (Trimble says he may have gossiped, but that he never deliberately leaked.) 2 At the same time as being voluble, Trimble was not very sociable: after party officers’ meetings on Friday afternoons at Glengall Street, he would not be found drinking Ken Maginnis’ beloved Rioja with members of the team. Subsequently, Molyneaux was annoyed by Trimble’s habit of playing with his personal computer whenever the discussion became boring. 3