Paisley and politics of peace

Opinion: March 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Los Angeles Times: Northern Ireland’s Protestant war horse, the 83-year-old the Rev. Ian Paisley, has announced he is ready to relinquish the County Antrim seat he has held in Britain’s House of Commons for 40 years and which he used as a platform to defend the cause of militant Unionism. For many in the province, Paisley is still “Dr. No,” the rabidly anti-Catholic minister who incited sectarian hatred and obstructed peacemaking for decades. “Never, never, never,” he famously said in response to a 1985 Anglo-Irish agreement that laid the groundwork for self-determination and a devolved provincial government.

Near the end of his career, however, Paisley gave meaning to the phrase “never say never” by joining a power-sharing government with the enemy, former Irish Republican Army leader Martin McGuinness, bringing an official close to the bloodshed known simply as “the Troubles.”

A founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Northern Ireland, Paisley railed against smoking, drinking and homosexuality, and reviled the Roman Catholic Church. He was elected to the European Parliament in the 1970s, and when Pope John Paul II delivered a speech there in 1988, Paisley shouted, “I denounce you as the antichrist!”

Paisley founded the Democratic Unionist Party. Although he is not known to have taken part in vigilantism, Protestant militia groups had his moral support, while politicians who sought accommodation with Catholic nationalists earned his wrath.

In the end, though, he joined the Northern Ireland parliament that it created and eventually formed the government with McGuinness in 2007. There was no epiphany for the lifelong opponent of change. He embraced it gradually and later said he had no regrets.