On the Town: The third biography of David Trimble in recent times was launched in Dublin this week.
Whatever about being the subject of three books, it was turning 60 last month "that certainly made me aware of my mortality", said a smiling leader of the Ulster Unionist Party at the launch of David Trimble: The Price of Peace, by Frank Millar.
Dermot Ahern TD, Minister for Foreign Affairs, welcoming the book, said it was "probing and rigorous. It doesn't shy away from hard questions".
Trimble, Ahern added, "demonstrates a remarkable capacity for honest analysis - of himself, of his party, and of the wider situation". As "a political junkie . . . I had some empathy with the human touches", he continued, citing a handwritten letter of encouragement delivered to Trimble from Nora Bradford, whose husband had been killed.
Millar, who is the London editor of The Irish Times, began work on the book earlier this summer when he conducted a series of interviews with Trimble in his offices in London's House of Commons.
"When we got into questions of his own personal faith and beliefs, it was very emotional," said Millar. "His eyes watered, his voice choked. It was really quite intense. It so obviously had to be dragged from him. The sheer intensity of it stands out."
Among those who gathered in the Stephen's Green Club were historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, former taoiseach Albert Reynolds, and retired politician Austin Currie, whose autobiography, All Hell Will Break Loose, was published earlier this year by O'Brien Press.
Others at the event were Trimble's adviser, Dr Steven King; Andy Pollak, of the Centre for Cross-Border Studies; Tom Kitt TD, the Government chief whip; Maurice Manning, president of the Human Rights Commission; the Irish ambassador to Germany, Sean O'Huiginn; the US ambassador, James C. Kenny; the UK ambassador, Stuart Eldon; and RTÉ's London editor, Brian O'Connell.
David Trimble: The Price of Peace, by Frank Millar, is published by The Liffey Press