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

By comparison, there were few serious disturbances at Drumcree itself, though the tension rose further. Such was the strain that the Orange leadership suggested that crush barriers be used to separate the two sides, as might be erected on the occasion of a Royal visit. The RUC agreed to the creation of barriers, but the Orangemen misunderstood their shorthand and it soon emerged that what was being put up was concrete and barbed wire akin to those on dangerous border crossings. When the Orangemen asked to see the intended barrier (Trimble was worried what would happen if the Loyalists were pushed up against the wire) they were told that they could inspect it at St Paul’s Roman Catholic School. A group of marshals, accompanied by Trimble, went down to the school – only to find nothing there and that the wire was already being set up. Just then they heard the noise of a fracas coming from Drumcree. They were told on their mobile telephones that the police had begun to charge the Orangemen and to push them back. Trimble drove swiftly in an unmarked vehicle to the scene through the police lines at the end of the Ballyoran estate with truckloads of regular troops looking on. As they ran through the last of the police lines to reach their brethren, they found that the RUC had entered the cemetery, assuming their new position atop several graves: according to Harold Gracey, the RUC had promised him that they would never enter the cemetery. 24 Although they offered no resistance, one Orangeman complained bitterly that it was the resting place of his father. Trimble gestured to the crowd to calm down in the face of what he, too, saw as an ‘escalation by the RUC’ and urged them to sit down on the road: it would then be harder for the RUC to charge them again. He then went back to the cemetery where he was filmed gesticulating a lot at the riot squad and urging them to pull back. He suddenly noticed one officer pointing a baton gun towards him. Trimble could not see the number on his tunic – thus precluding the possibility of making a complaint since it would be impossible to establish the constable’s identity. ‘As the officer was eyeballing me I thought to myself, “this bloody man is quite capable of shooting me”.’ 25 It remains the most memorable image of Trimble in that year: quite apart from the nationalist community, it horrified many Unionists as well. ‘Unionists of my generation found it unacceptable to poke a finger at the RUC,’ says James Molyneaux. 26 Curiously, for all of their differences, Mayhew did understand Trimble’s predicament. Andrew Hunter noted in his diary of 9 July 1996 that Mayhew said to him in a telephone conversation that ‘Trimble can’t afford not to be there’. Summarising the attitude of the Orangemen towards the UUP leader, Mayhew observed, ‘“We put you there, now do the stuff.” [Trimble is being] reasonably responsible.’

Trimble spent the night of Monday 8 July 1996 at home: unlike the first Drumcree, he was better organised and managed to return to his house for some sleep and a shower. The next morning, he and Daphne Trimble went to London. His reasons were two-fold. First, he had sought an appointment with Major to discuss the crisis – along with Paisley, McCartney and Rev. Martin Smyth in his capacity as Grand Master of Ireland. Second, he had been invited on the night of Tuesday 9 July 1996 to the state banquet at Buckingham Palace in honour of Nelson Mandela. 27 Trimble knew he had to put on a display of Unionist unity because the community wanted it and there was in any case no point in holding separate meetings. 28 McCartney, though, recalls that Trimble objected to his presence and that it was Paisley who insisted that all of the Unionist leaders be there. ‘You’re being allowed into this meeting – but you’re not allowed to dominate it,’ Trimble told McCartney. To McCartney, this was a clear indication he was there on sufferance and he exploded. ‘You pompous posturing ass, how dare you speak to me in those tones!’: personal relations between the leaders of the various strands of Unionism were by then much worse than those which obtained between the leaders of constitutional and physical force nationalism. 29 But once they were in the Prime Minister’s room in the Commons, the three party leaders emphasised that if the march did not proceed, the authorities might have eight or nine different Drumcrees on their hands. 30 But it was the dealings which took place outside of the formal context of that meeting which were most significant. Before he went into the meeting, Trimble communicated to Major that he planned to ask the four main church leaders in Ireland to intervene in the Drumcree crisis: the Church of Ireland Primate of All Ireland, the President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland. Trimble also entertained the idea of a quid pro quo whereby the nationalist residents would remove their objection to the Orange march if they were allowed the equivalent of a St Patrick’s Day parade. Trimble offered this because he says they knew that the Government wanted the dispute resolved by negotiation rather than by force majeure and that the Major ministry would view their case sympathetically if the Orangemen took the initiative and negotiations then broke down. Major duly endorsed the plan. After the three Unionist leaders emerged from the session with the Prime Minister, Trimble separated himself from the others and announced this initiative which he did not reveal over the table. 31 The church leaders’ meeting, which was inconclusive, took place in Armagh the next day: its significance lay in the novelty value of a Unionist chief meeting all of the church leaders together. 32

That night, Trimble and the Prime Minister again found themselves under the same roof- this time at the Mandela state banquet in Buckingham Palace. The Queen was ‘most solicitous’ he recalls, but the Duke of Edinburgh pointed at Trimble and teased the UUP leader with the words ‘oh, ho, ho – so they managed to drag you away from the barricades?’; afterwards, Trimble told fellow Loyalists privately that the Sovereign’s consort had a good grasp of the situation at Drumcree. 33 Jeffrey Donaldson claims that when Trimble returned the next day, the UUP leader told him, ‘Major will give me a victory’, so long as they went through the motions of conciliation. Trimble says that the state banquet was very conveniently timed, but he denies that Major promised him that the march would go down the road; and Major agrees with Trimble’s recollection that no such pledge was given. 34 Whatever really occurred between the Prime Minister and the UUP leader that night, the visit to London did Trimble little good amongst the brethren in the fields outside Portadown. Many of them felt that he had gone to sup with a terrorist, in the person of Mandela; others saw the pictures of Trimble in white tie and tails and felt that he had let down his own people by abandoning his post to enjoy the high life.

The scene when Trimble returned on Wednesday 10 July was about as far removed from the niceties of Buckingham Palace as it was possible to imagine. The Reverend John Pickering, the Rector of Drumcree parish, had been unable to sleep all night and at around 1:45 p.m. was packed off to bed by his wife. According to his private diary, he was still lying down in the late afternoon when he received a telephone call. A huge mechanical digger was moving round at the top of the hill – and metal was being welded on. Pickering informed Trimble, who said there was no such device. ‘You’d better take another look,’ said Pickering. When he saw the digger, Trimble became very concerned. 35 Trimble recalls that senior RUC officers were also very worried about the digger – it had been nicknamed ‘police buster’ – and contacted Trimble to see if the UUP leader could do anything about it (there were also rumours that slurry tankers filled with petrol were being readied to spray the RUC). Key players such as Harold Gracey did not know where the digger came from, though Denis Watson believes it must have originated in a local construction firm. Trimble went up to the digger and clambered on to the vehicle, which according to Denis Watson was manned by loyalists in boiler suits. Billy Wright sat there, calmly sunning himself on a deck-chair, whilst the men welded on more armour plating. ‘What on earth do you think you are doing?’ Trimble asked them. They gave him short shrift and one of them denounced him as an MI5 agent. He was rescued by some Orangemen: Denis Watson says that ‘David Trimble is a very lucky man he wasn’t murdered at that stage.’ 36 Harold Gracey recalled telling Trimble ‘“David, go you out of the way” – and he did.’ Gracey then spoke to the men, whom he said that he had never seen before or since, and they switched off the engine. ‘Okay, we’ll do it for you, but not for him’ (that is, Trimble). 37