15.3.2008
Reports obtained from:
(1) Irish News, (2) Troops Out Movement, (3) The Guardian
Wednesday, 5 March, 2008
Thursday-Wednesday, 6-12 March, 2008
The first politician cheeky enough to claim divine sanction for his ambition Paisley walks
By The Irish News
Ian Paisley could not have imagined being pushed out of power after just a year in office says Brian Feeney. In the end he went because he had served his purpose. Paisley alone could have sealed the deal with Sinn Fein because his 45-year divisive career of ranting, stunts, threats, protests, walk-outs, phantom armies and third forces made it impossible for any other unionist to do so. Had he retired in 2005 after his party’s rout of the once all-powerful UUP any other leader of the DUP who had tried to share power with Martin McGuinness would immediately have been denounced as ‘selling out’. If Paisley did it, it was OK, but only just. Large numbers in his Church and many within the DUP were deeply shocked at the ultimate outsider becoming the ultimate insider. How many, we won’t know until the European election in June 2009.
Paisley had so rancorously polluted the political wells in the north since his criminal behaviour in the early 1960s landed him in jail that he paralysed unionism. That was his intention. Nationalists assume that he was irrational, blinded with anti-Catholic bigotry which was his driving force. That’s much too simple an explanation for his extraordinary misbehaviour over the decades. True, his anti-Catholic rhetoric spewed out in his appalling rag of the late 1960s, The Protestant Telegraph, reviled everything Catholics held dear. However, while anti-Catholicism was his rhetorical weapon, his main target was secular reforming unionism.
He was jailed for his protests outside the Presbyterian General Assembly where his followers yelled ‘Lundy’ and ‘Popehead’ at the dignitaries emerging. Paisley, like many unionists of working-class and farming origins, was convinced the unionist establishment could never be trusted not to sell out to London or Dublin or both. It goes without saying that no English politician could be trusted.
The future of the ‘People of Ulster’ – by which he meant the Protestant people of Ulster – would only be safe in his hands and unless and until that day dawned he would ensure that no other unionist would make a deal. Any unionist politician who tried was immediately denounced as a traitor and a Lundy – O’Neill, Chichester-Clark, Faulkner, Trimble. You’ll notice the long gap of 25 years between Faulkner and Trimble during which Paisley held the UUP captive. Molyneaux knew that one step towards accommodation would be his downfall.
All through Molyneaux’s soporific leadership Paisley held him in a suffocating embrace. As soon as the new UUP leader Trimble made a move away from Paisley’s grip, Paisley pounced on him and destroyed him. Only when he had devoured the UUP in the 2005 British general election and had become the undisputed leader of unionism did Paisley decide to savour the fruits of his victory. He could not have imagined he would be pushed out in a year.
The political arrogance of Ian Og provided the pretext for the heave against him. Paisley’s final misjudgment was surely the appointment of Ian Og to the Policing Board. A step too far. In the end Paisley was just another politician driven by personal ambition but the first one in modern times who had the cheek to claim divine sanction for his decisions.
Copyright © The Irish News 2008
The Real Ian Paisley
A selection of his quotes:
"I better shake hands with this man and give you a firm grip" - as he prepared to shake hands with the Irish Republic's Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Dublin last April.
Thursday-Wednesday, 6-12 March, 2008
Feature: Ian Paisley
By Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams (for the Guardian)
As I meandered my carefree way to school, I and other pedestrian scholars passed the election offices, in a shop, of the local republican candidate Liam McMillen. It was 1964. It was Belfast. The Irish national flag adorned the shop window. We paid little attention to this until Ian Paisley announced that he would march on to the Falls Road to remove "this foreign flag" unless the RUC removed it.
The RUC promptly obliged, smashing the shop front in the process and swamping the neighbourhood with armoured cars and riot police. The people in the election office did what anyone else would do in the circumstances. They got another flag and put it back in the window. The RUC returned and days of street rioting ensued.
These events whetted my political appetite, radicalised a generation of young people like myself, and were my first acquaintance with Ian Paisley. For his part Paisley was one in a long line of firebrand fundamentalist protestant clerics who ignited and enflamed Anglo-Irish politics at different times in our history by playing the sectarian card.
The result was to impede or delay progress, to polarise our society, and to incite violence and tension. So Ian Paisley was not the exception. Though he was exceptional.
In 1946, two years before I was born, he was ordained at the independent Ravenhill Evangelical Mission church in east Belfast. And in the early 50s, after a dispute with the Presbyterian church, he helped to establish the Free Presbyterian church. In 1954 he received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the Bob Jones University in South Carolina. In 1971 he founded the Democratic Unionist party.
He was also associated with a number of hardline organisations including Ulster Protestant Action; Protestant Unionists; Ulster Protestant Volunteers; Ulster Workers' Council; Vanguard; Ulster Defence Association; and Ulster Resistance.
Ian Paisley led the efforts to topple every single unionist leader, from Terence O'Neill in the late 60s to David Trimble a few years ago. His demand that "O'Neill must go" or "Faulkner must go", right up to the modern day, cut down generations of unionist leaders. So Ian Paisley was a busy man.
He and I were not to meet until recent times and he did not talk to me directly until March 26 2007, when we agreed the arrangements which led to the re-establishment of the political institutions here.
In and around 2003 and 2004, when it was obvious that David Trimble was not going to deliver, some of us formed a view that our big challenge was to make a deal with Ian Paisley. By 2004 it was my opinion that he would do a deal. We had to make sure that the timing and substance was right. By 2005 and 2006 I had warmed to the view that a Paisley deal was the best option. After all, who could out-Paisley Ian Paisley? It needed him to bring unionism into the new dispensation.
Of course I could not be certain that he would come on board, but in fairness, when he did it was with grace and good humour. That humour and his civilised accord with Martin McGuinness went against the grain of those who had been reared in the image of the old Paisley.
I am often asked what made him do the deal. He himself explains that he had no alternative, that if he did not accept the St Andrews agreement the British and Irish governments were going to move ahead despite unionism.
I think that's only part of the story. His wife, Eileen, and his family undoubtedly played a big role in his decision, and I think his willingness to reach out and to work positively with Sinn Féin was a genuine endeavour to make things better for the people who live here.
Did he do everything that was required of him during his term as first minister? No. He was restrained, in part perhaps by his own history, and by some within his party who don't like the new political arrangements. It is ironic that a "Paisley must go" campaign started less than a year after he became first minister and for the last few months there has been a growing leadership crisis within the DUP, culminating in Tuesday's retirement announcement.
Will I miss him? Well, maybe I can get to know him better now that he is retiring to the backbenches. I would like that. He is a fascinating figure, with many facets to his character. In my dealings with him I have always found him cordial, good-humoured and respectful.
But of course the main focus has to be on delivering and on working with the new DUP leader, who will also have challenges in the time ahead. For Sinn Féin the peace process is certainly a marathon. Ian Paisley's retirement makes it a relay race for the Democratic Unionist party. Will we succeed in getting to the finishing line? Yes. That is one lesson that Ian Paisley teaches all of us. Never say "never, never, never".
Guardian Unlimited Copyright © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008