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• First sign of hope
• Trimble a maverick
• Reason rather than rant
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(CNN) -- David Trimble was on a business trip in Denver in mid-October promoting Northern Ireland as a place to do business when he was awakened by a knock on the door of his hotel room.

Although it was 6 a.m., his secretary thought he might like to know that he had just been named co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the signing and ratification of the historic Good Friday peace agreement.

"It is a great honor," the bleary-eyed Trimble said at an impromptu news conference, "but it's not for me personally."

Trimble lauded, instead, his fellow members of the Protestant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), his longtime Catholic adversary and co-winner, John Hume, and the people of Northern Ireland who "have longed so much for real peace." ( 255 K/22 sec. AIFF or WAV sound)

And then, worrying that the process was far from over, he added, "I hope this honor doesn't prove to be premature."

Eight months after the signing of the agreement, Trimble's anxieties seem justified.

The naming of a 12-member Executive composed of Catholics and Protestants who are to rule Northern Ireland jointly for the first time in history has become bogged down in wrangling. There also have been occasional violent episodes, and many have wondered if things would ever change.

Trimble may also have had in mind the 1994 winners of the Nobel Peace Prize -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israelis Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres -- who were honored for their milestone agreement in Oslo in 1993.

Oslo and the Nobel were followed by disagreements, bickering, threats and outright violence, and a lasting peace in the Mideast still appears to be more fantasy than fact.

And if the Nobel Prize were not enough to push the two sides into harmony, it would not be the first time.

In 1976, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan received the Peace Prize as founders of the Northern Ireland Peace Movement, a grass-roots organization dedicated to resolving the decades-old conflict.

Nevertheless, the Nobel judges concluded that the Irish agreement was a new sign of hope in a conflict marked by implacable hatred and wanton blood-letting that has taken the lives of more than 3,600 people.

No one in the country of 1.6 million people has been untouched by the atmosphere of violence, which has its origins in the partitioning of Ireland in 1920 by the British government. The idea was to let political divisions reflect sectarian demographics -- Protestants in the north (also known as Ulster), Catholics in the south (now the Republic of Ireland).

But there was a sizable Catholic minority in the north, and their numbers grew over the years despite the difficulty they had in voting, finding jobs and even getting decent housing.

In 1968, a burly, tousled Catholic named John Hume began leading protests to bring attention to the plight of the Catholics. Two years later, he helped found the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), which he has led since 1979.

In the citation announcing the peace prize, the Nobel judges wrote that Hume was "the clearest and most consistent of Northern Ireland's political leaders in his work for a peaceful solution."

Perhaps most noteworthy is that throughout his 30-year crusade, Hume has vehemently opposed the violence favored by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and has championed only non-violent protest. And it is he, more than anyone, who is credited with minimizing Catholic support for the IRA.

When the agreement was ratified by voters on May 22, 1998, it was overwhelmingly approved in Northern Ireland and in the republic as well. But the results were somewhat misleading.

Protestants in the north supported the agreement by the slimmest of majorities, and then only because Trimble persuaded enough of them to overcome their misgivings about the inclusion of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the hated IRA.

Trimble's credentials as a hard-liner go back at least as far as 1973, when he helped overthrow leaders of the UUP who wanted to form a coalition with the SDLP.

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In doing so, Trimble reflected the concerns of Protestants who felt squeezed between the growing Catholic minority in their midst and the Catholic republic to the south. Their fear was that if Northern Ireland Catholics realized their goal of unity with the republic, they would face an uncertain and possibly desperate plight.

But the ruddy and unassuming Trimble proved to be something of a maverick. After assuming leadership of the UUP in 1995, he stunned friends and foes alike by supporting a series of political initiatives that would lead to the sharing of power with the Catholics.

A further shock came in September 1998 when he met with Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, the first time in more than 70 years that a unionist leader had met face to face with a republican leader.

Trimble, wrote the Nobel judges, showed "great political courage when at a critical stage in the process, he advocated solutions which led to the peace agreement."

News: • Nobel Notebook • Overview Background: • Interactive map: Laureate Locator • Mini-profiles of the 1998 Laureates The Prizes: • Chemistry • Economics • Literature • Medicine • Peace • Physics Discussion: • Message Board: What do Gandhi, Jimmy Carter and the pope have in common? • Pyramids Debate: Which writers deserve a literature prize?

More recently Trimble has been at the center of a controversy that has brought the peace process to a halt. As First Minister of the 12-member Executive that, with the 108-member National Assembly, will rule Northern Ireland, Trimble has refused to seat Sinn Fein's two members on the Executive until the IRA begins to disarm.

Adams accused Trimble of purposely slowing down the process, and claimed that the agreement set only a deadline in the year 2000 for the disarmament of paramilitary groups. Hume, never a fan of the IRA, but ever a force for reason and moderation, urged Trimble not to make an issue of IRA disarmament prematurely.

Despite their differences, Trimble and Hume continue to talk, and it is in their willingness to reason rather than rant that the hopes of Northern Ireland lay. It is also why they are co-winners of the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize.