Ian Paisley

Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, (6 April 1926 – 12 September 2014) was a Northern Irish loyalist politician and Protestant religious leader who served as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 to 2008.

Paisley became a Protestant evangelical minister in 1946 and remained one for the rest of his life. In 1951 he co-founded the Reformed fundamentalist Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and was its leader until 2008. Paisley became known for his fiery sermons and regularly preached anti-Catholicism, anti-ecumenism and against homosexuality. He gained a large group of followers who were referred to as Paisleyites.

Paisley became involved in Ulster unionist/loyalist politics in the late 1950s. In the mid-late 1960s, he led and instigated loyalist opposition to the Catholic civil rights movement in Northern Ireland. This contributed to the outbreak of the Troubles in the late 1960s, a conflict that would engulf Northern Ireland for the next 30 years. In 1970 he became Member of Parliament for North Antrim and the following year he founded the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which he would lead for almost 40 years. In 1979 he became a Member of the European Parliament.

Throughout the Troubles, Paisley was seen as a firebrand and the face of hardline unionism. He opposed all attempts to resolve the conflict through power-sharing between unionists and Irish nationalists/ republicans, and all attempts to involve the Republic of Ireland in Northern affairs. His efforts helped bring down the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974. He also opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, with less success. His attempts to create a paramilitary movement culminated in Ulster Resistance. Paisley and his party also opposed the Northern Ireland peace process and Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

In 2005, Paisley's DUP became the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland, displacing the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), which had dominated unionist politics since 1905 and had been an instrumental party in the Good Friday Agreement. In 2007, following the St Andrews Agreement, the DUP finally agreed to share power with republican party Sinn Féin. Paisley and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness became First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively in May 2007. He stepped down as First Minister and DUP leader in mid-2008, and left politics in 2011. Paisley was made a life peer in 2010 as Baron Bannside.

Personal life

Ian Richard Kyle Paisley was born in Armagh, County Armagh, and brought up in the town of Ballymena, County Antrim, where his father James Kyle Paisley was an Independent Baptist pastor who had previously served in the Ulster Volunteers under Edward Carson. His mother was Scottish.

Paisley married Eileen Cassells on 13 October 1956. They had five children, daughters Sharon, Rhonda and Cherith and twin sons, Kyle and Ian. Three of their children followed their father into politics or religion: Kyle is a Free Presbyterian minister; Ian is a DUP MP; and Rhonda, a retired DUP councillor. He had a brother, Harold, who is also an evangelical fundamentalist.

Paisley saw himself primarily as an Ulsterman. However, despite his hostility towards Irish republicanism and the Republic of Ireland, he also saw himself as an Irishman and said that "you cannot be an Ulsterman without being an Irishman".

Religious career

When he was a teenager, Paisley decided to follow his father and become a Christian minister. He delivered his first sermon aged 16 in a mission hall in County Tyrone.BBC News (Sept. 2014
“Obituary: Ian Paisley”
, BBC News, 12 September 2014. Retrieved 12 September 2014 In the late 1940s he undertook theological training at the Barry School of Evangelism (now called the Wales Evangelical School of Theology), and later, for a year, at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Hall in Belfast.

In 1951, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) was forbidden by church authorities to hold a meeting in their own church hall at which Paisley was to be the speaker. In response, the leaders of that congregation left the PCI and began a new denomination, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, with Paisley, who was just 25 years old at the time. Paisley soon became the leader (or moderator) of the Free Presbyterian ChurchClifford Smyth, ''Ian Paisley: Voice of Protestant Ulster'', p.5 and was re-elected every year, for the next 57 years.

The Free Presbyterian Church is a fundamentalist, evangelical church, requiring strict separation from "any church which has departed from the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God." At the time of the 1991 census, the church had about 12,000 members, less than 1 per cent of the Northern Ireland population.

Paisley promoted a highly conservative form of Biblical literalism and anti-Catholicism, which he described as "Bible Protestantism". The website of Paisley's public relations arm, the ''European Institute of Protestant Studies'', describes the institute's purpose as to "expound the Bible, expose the Papacy, and to promote, defend and maintain Bible Protestantism in Europe and further afield." Paisley's website describes a number of doctrinal areas in which he believes that the "Roman church" (which he termed 'Popery') has deviated from the Bible and thus from true Christianity. Over the years, Paisley would write numerous books and pamphlets on his religious and political views, including a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Paisley set up his own newspaper in February 1966, the ''Protestant Telegraph'', as a mechanism for further spreading his message.

In the 1960s, Paisley developed a relationship with the fundamentalist Bob Jones University located in Greenville, South Carolina. In 1966, he received an honorary doctorate of divinity from the institution and subsequently served on its board of trustees. This relationship would later lead to the establishment of the Free Presbyterian Church of North America in 1977. His honorary doctorate, along with his political obstinacy, led to Paisley's nickname of "Dr. No".

When Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother met Pope John XXIII in 1958, Paisley condemned them for "committing spiritual fornication and adultery with the Antichrist". When Pope John died in June 1963, Paisley announced to a crowd of followers that "this Romish man of sin is now in Hell!". He organised protests against the lowering of flags on public buildings to mark the Pope's death.

In 1988, having given advance warning of his intentions, Paisley interrupted a speech being delivered by Pope John Paul II in the European Parliament. Paisley shouted "I denounce you as the Antichrist!" and held up a poster reading ''"Pope John Paul II ANTICHRIST"''. Other MEPs jeered Paisley, threw papers at him and snatched his poster, but he produced another and continued shouting. He was admonished by Parliamentary President Lord Plumb, who formally excluded him. He was then forcibly removed from the chamber. Paisley claims he was injured by other MEPs—including Otto von Habsburg—who struck him and threw objects at him.

Paisley believed the European Union is a part of a conspiracy to create a Roman Catholic superstate controlled by the Vatican. He claimed in an article that the seat no. 666 in the European Parliament is reserved for the Antichrist.

Paisley continued to denounce the Catholic Church and the Pope after the incident. In a television interview for ''The Unquiet Man'', a 2001 documentary on Paisley's life, he expressed his pride at being "the only person to have the courage to denounce the Pope". However, after the death of Pope John Paul in 2005, Paisley expressed sympathy for Catholics, saying "We can understand how Roman Catholics feel at the death of the Pope and we would want in no way to interfere with their expression of sorrow and grief at this time."

Paisley and his followers also protested against what they saw as instances of blasphemy in popular culture, including the stage productions ''Jesus Christ Superstar'' and '' Jerry Springer: The Opera'', as well as being strongly anti-abortion.

Campaign against homosexuality

Paisley preached against homosexuality, supported laws criminalising it and picketed various gay rights events. He denounced it as "a crime against God and man and its practice is a terrible step to the total demoralisation of any country". Save Ulster from Sodomy was a campaign launched by Paisley in 1977, in opposition to the Northern Ireland Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform, established in 1974. Paisley's campaign sought to prevent the extension to Northern Ireland of the Sexual Offences Act 1967, which had decriminalised homosexual acts between males over 21 years of age in England and Wales. Paisley's campaign failed when legislation was passed in 1982 as a result of the previous year's ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of ''Dudgeon v United Kingdom''.

Political career, 1949–2010

Early activism

In 1949, Paisley formed a Northern Irish branch of the National Union of Protestants, the group being led in the UK by his uncle, W. St Clair Taylor.Richard Lawrence Jordan, ''The Second Coming of Paisley: Militant Fundamentalism and Ulster Politics'', p.222 Paisley's first political involvement came at the 1950 general election when he campaigned on behalf of the successful Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) candidate in Belfast West, the Church of Ireland minister James Godfrey MacManaway. Independent Unionist MP Norman Porter came to lead the National Union of Protestants, while Paisley became treasurer, but Paisley left after Porter refused to join the Free Presbyterian Church.

Paisley first hit headlines in 1956 when Maura Lyons, a 15-year-old Belfast Catholic doubting her faith, sought his help and was smuggled illegally to Scotland by members of his Free Presbyterian Church. Paisley publicly played a tape of her religious conversion but refused to help with the search for her, saying he would rather go to prison than return her to her Catholic family. Lyons eventually returned both to her family and Catholicism.

In 1956, Paisley was one of the founders of Ulster Protestant Action (UPA). Its initial purpose was to organise the defence of Protestant areas against anticipated Irish Republican Army (IRA) activity. It carried out vigilante patrols, made street barricades, and drew up lists of IRA suspects in both Belfast and rural areas.''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations''
, Peter Barberis, John McHugh, Mike Tyldesley, p.255 The UPA was to later become the Protestant Unionist Party in 1966. UPA factory and workplace branches were formed, including one by Paisley in Belfast's Ravenhill area under his direct control. The concern of the UPA increasingly came to focus on the defence of 'Bible Protestantism' and Protestant interests where jobs and housing were concerned. The UPA also campaigned against the allocation of public housing to Catholics.

As Paisley came to dominate UPA, he received his first convictions for public order offences. In June 1959, Paisley addressed a UPA rally in the mainly-Protestant Shankill district of Belfast. During the speech, he shouted out the addresses of some Catholic-owned homes and businesses in the area. These homes and businesses were then attacked by the crowd; windows were smashed, shops were looted and "Taigs out" painted on the doors.Coogan, p.56

During the 1964 UK general election campaign, an Irish republican candidate displayed an Irish tricolour from the window of his office in a republican area of Belfast. Paisley threatened that if the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) did not remove the tricolour he would lead a march to the office and take it down himself. The Flags and Emblems Act banned the public display of any symbol, with the exception of the Union Flag, that could cause a breach of the peace. In response, armed officers arrived at the building, smashed their way inside and seized the flag. This led to severe rioting between republicans and the RUC. Thirty people, including at least 18 officers, had to be hospitalised.Boyd, Andrew. ''Holy War in Belfast''
Chapter 11: The Tricolour Riots
. Anvil Books, 1969. Reproduced on CAIN.

Opposition to the civil rights movement

In 1964, a peaceful civil rights campaign began in Northern Ireland. The civil rights movement sought to end discrimination against Catholics and those of Catholic background by the Protestant and unionist government of Northern Ireland. Paisley instigated and led loyalist opposition to the civil rights movement over the next few years. He also led opposition against Terence O'Neill, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland. Although O'Neill was also unionist, Paisley and his followers saw him as being too 'soft' on the civil rights movement and opposed his policies of reform and reconciliation.

In April 1966, Paisley and his associate Noel Doherty founded the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) and its paramilitary wing, the Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV).Coogan, p.57Boulton, David. ''The UVF 1966–73, An Anatomy of Loyalist Rebellion''. Torc Books, 1973. (Boulton 34) At the time, Irish republicans were marking the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. Although the IRA was inactive, loyalists such as Paisley warned that it was about to be revived and launch another campaign against Northern Ireland.Chronology of Key Events in Irish History: 1800 to 1967
. Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN). Retrieved 12 September 2014. At the same time, a loyalist paramilitary group calling itself the "Ulster Volunteer Force" (UVF) emerged in the Shankill area of Belfast, led by Gusty Spence