Paisley, Ian (b. 1926)

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PAISLEY, IAN (b. 1926)

influential Protestant unionist minister in Northern Ireland.

The Reverend Ian Richard Kyle Paisley was born in the ancient ecclesiastical capital of Ireland, the City of Armagh, on 6 April 1926. His father, Kyle, was a Baptist minister who had been a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force that had opposed Home Rule before World War I. The family moved to Ballymena, County Antrim, in 1928 when Paisley's father became minister to a larger congregation. In 1942 Paisley spent a year in the Barry School of Evangelism in South Wales, returning to Belfast in 1943 where for three years he was a part-time student at a theological college run by the small Protestant sect, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland. Paisley's brand of evangelical Protestantism was deeply influenced by the literalist and separatist doctrines of American fundamentalism, and he developed close links with Dr. Bob Jones (1883–1968) of the Bob Jones University in South Carolina, which awarded him an honorary degree in 1966. In 1951, Paisley established his own Free Presbyterian Church in the Ravenhill area of Belfast, where he later erected the large Martyrs Memorial Church.

From the late 1940s, Paisley was involved on the fringes of unionist politics. He was a member of the Orange Order, although he resigned from it in 1962 and joined the dissident Independent Orange Order. He linked himself to an "independent unionist" tradition that combined religious fundamentalism with a populist critique of the unionist establishment for allegedly betraying working class Protestants and appeasing Catholics and nationalists. The original support for his organizations Ulster Protestant Action and the Protestant Unionist Party came from disaffected working class Protestants in Belfast. His political breakthrough occurred when a new unionist prime minister, Captain Terence O'Neill (1914–1990; prime minister 1963–1969), moved gingerly to address some of the grievances of Ulster's Catholic minority. Paisley identified O'Neill with the "appeasers" in the mainstream Protestant churches who supported the ecumenical movement in response to the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

Paisley's vivid revivalist preaching style, combined with a sharp wit and fierce caricatures of his religious and political opponents, allowed him to tap into reservoirs of class and ethnic resentments and insecurities in the Protestant community. His willingness to take his supporters onto the streets produced heightened inter-community tensions. In 1966 he was imprisoned for a protest outside the Presbyterian General Assembly. However, Paisley's support continued to grow as O'Neill faced the onset of the civil rights movement and its marches and street protests. Paisley put himself at the head of those ultra-loyalists who took to the streets to oppose the marches.

As the crisis of the unionist state deepened, Paisley emerged as the most strident voice of the Right. He claimed responsibility for O'Neill's resignation and harried O'Neill's successors as they introduced reforms under pressure from the British government. In April 1970, Paisley won a by-election for O'Neill's Bannside constituency at Stormont, and in the June 1970 general election he won the North Antrim seat at Westminster. By this time the civil rights movement had given way to the armed struggle of the IRA, and the conditions of violence and insecurity intensified the appeal of the Right within the Protestant community. In October 1971, the Protestant Unionist Party was transformed into the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) as Paisley attempted to widen the appeal to disaffected unionists who had reservations about the influence of Protestant fundamentalism on his party. The suspension of the Stormont Parliament in 1972 was a major blow to the Unionist Party, but the DUP failed to exploit it because of Paisley's temporary support for the idea of the total integration of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. He was also faced with the emergence of an alternative leadership of the right in the person of the former unionist cabinet minister, Bill Craig (b. 1924), and his Ulster Vanguard movement.

In the elections for a new Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973, the DUP won 10 percent of the vote to the Ulster Unionists' 29 percent. Paisley joined with Craig and the right wing of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) to oppose the Sunningdale Agreement in December 1973 that established an executive based on power sharing between unionists and nationalists. He supported the Ulster Workers' Council strike when a combination of industrial action and intimidation by Protestant paramilitary groups brought the province to a standstill and forced the resignation of the executive in May 1974.

In the aftermath of the strike, the DUP's support expanded significantly as Craig isolated himself by his support for an "emergency coalition" with nationalists. At the same time, the Ulster Unionist Party was suffering from weak leadership and internal divisions. The DUP could rely on the single-minded commitment of members of the Free Presbyterian Church to present a united and hard-line image that appealed in a period of acute uncertainty. In the first elections to the European Parliament in 1979, Paisley topped the poll with almost 30 percent of the vote. In 1981 the DUP first inched ahead of the Ulster Unionist Party in the local government elections. However, this victory proved short-term and it was not until the elections for a Northern Ireland Assembly in October 2003 that the DUP would again surpass the UUP.

This reflected the unease in sections of the Protestant community with the religious extremism of many party members and activists, and also with Paisley's continued identification with militancy on the streets through events like the failed United Unionist Action Council Strike in 1977 and a DUP-sponsored vigilante organization, the "Third Force," set up in 1981. The party also suffered from its inability to shift Margaret Thatcher's commitment to the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. By the 1990s, while Paisley continued to win massive votes in European elections, the DUP seemed to be confirmed in its position of second place to the UUP. However, the IRA cease-fire and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 convulsed unionist politics in a way that benefited the DUP.

Paisley had opposed the agreement as a "sellout" to the IRA. Key aspects of the agreement, like the early release of paramilitary prisoners and police reform, were intensely unpopular among grassroots Unionists. As the UUP leader, David Trimble (b. 1944), accepted republicans in government and the IRA prevaricated on the decommissioning of its weapons, support for the UUP slumped and Paisley and his party benefited. However, given the continued strength of fundamentalism in the DUP, doubts remained that, even if his failing health would allow it, Paisley would crown his political career by becoming first minister of Northern Ireland.

See alsoIRA; Northern Ireland; United Kingdom.