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"Ian Paisley" may also refer to Ian Paisley, Jr.

Ian Richard Kyle Paisley (born 6 April 1926), styled The Revd and Rt Hon. Ian Paisley and also known as Dr Ian Paisley, is a senior politician and church leader from Northern Ireland. Unusual among politicians, he combines two roles, one religious, one secular. He is the founder and Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster while also Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. He has been an outspoken critic of the Roman Catholic faith and has also campaigned against the legalisation of homosexuality. In 2005 Paisley's party became the largest Unionist party in Northern Ireland, displacing his long-term rivals, the Ulster Unionists.

1 Background
2 'No Surrender'
3 Political Life
4 Ian Paisley says 'Ulster says no'
5 The Belfast Agreement
6 A Complex Man
7 Defender or Demagogue?
8 Campaign against homosexuality
9 Octogenarian activities
10 2004 illness and beyond
11 Family
12 Famous Quotes
13 External links
14 References
15 Sources/Further Information

Background

Ian Paisley was born in the city of Armagh, County Armagh, and brought up in the town of Ballymena, County Antrim, where his father James Kyle Paisley was an Independent Baptist pastor. His Scottish mother Isabella Paisley was instrumental in his evangelical conversion at the age of six. After completing his education at the Model School in Ballymena, he went to work on a farm in Sixmilecross, County Tyrone. During this time he received a vocation to enter the Christian ministry. He undertook theological training at the fundamentalist Barry School of Evangelism (eventually renamed the South Wales Bible college), and later, for a year, at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Hall in Belfast, though he graduated from neither.

In 1946 he was ordained, at a ceremony in the independent Ravenhill Evangelical Mission Church on the Ravenhill Road in Belfast. Four ministers from four different denominations performed various roles in the service but some have questioned whether they had ecclesiastical authority from their churches to participate. In the early 1950s permission for Ian Paisley to use Lissara Presbyterian church in Crossgar, County Down for a Gospel Mission was revoked by the local presbytery. Paisley claimed that this was because many within the Presbyterian Church hierarchy rejected the preaching of the Gospel. Presbyterians have tended to argue it was blocked because he was not a member of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland) and in contravention of their code. In conjunction with the Lissara kirk session Ian Paisley helped to establish the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster at Crossgar, County Down. Following a vote in his own church he joined the Free Presbyterian Church and was subsequently elected its second moderator of the new denomination, a post he has held for several decades.

Paisley is a member of the loyalist Apprentice Boys of Derry. He is a former member of the Orange Order. He resigned from it in 1962 in protest at the failure to discipline a senior member for attending the Roman Catholic Mass. He addresses the annual gathering of the Independent Orange Order every Twelfth of July.

Paisley's use of the title 'Dr.' derives from an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree awarded by Bob Jones University, an unaccredited Christian college in Greenville, South Carolina. Bob Jones, Jr. was a close personal friend and a co-leader with Ian Paisley in the international fundamentalist movement, and Paisley continues to maintain a friendly relationship with the institution. It should be noted that holders of honorary Doctorates are not permitted to use the Honorific 'Dr'.

Paisley eventually set up his own newspaper, the Protestant Telegraph, a strongly anti-Catholic paper, as a mechanism for further spreading his message. A website, the European Institute of Protestant Studies, fills that role today. He has authored numerous books and pamphlets on religious and political subjects. One book, a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, was penned while serving a prison sentence in Crumlin Road Jail. He is also the founder and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party which is currently the largest party in Northern Ireland, the fourth largest party in the United Kingdom in terms of representation at Westminster, and the fourth largest in the island of Ireland in terms of votes. DUP supporters are not necessarily members of the Free Presbyterian Church.

'No Surrender'

In 1956, Paisley was among those invited to a special meeting at the Ulster Unionist Party's offices in Glengall Street, Belfast. Many Loyalists who were to become major figures in the 1960s and 1970 also attended, and the meeting's declared purpose was to organise the defense of Protestant areas against anticipated IRA activity, as the old Ulster Protestant Association had done after partition in 1920, often by organising assassination missions into Catholic areas of Belfast.^[1] The new body decided to call itself Ulster Protestant Action (UPA), and the first year of its existence was taken up with the discussion of vigilante patrols, street barricades, and drawing up lists of IRA suspects in both Belfast and in rural areas.^[2]

Even though no IRA threat materialised in Belfast, and despite it becoming clear that the IRA's activities during the Border Campaign were to be limited to the border areas, Ulster Protestant Action remained in being, (the UPA was to later become the Protestant Unionist Party in 1966). Factory and workplace branches were formed under the UPA, including one by Paisley in Belfast's Ravenhill area under his direct control. The concern of the UPA increasingly came to focus on the defense of 'Bible Protestantism' and Protestant interests where jobs and housing were concerned. As Paisley came to dominate Ulster Protestant Action, he received his first convictions for public order offenses. In June 1959, a major riot occurred on the Shankill Road in Belfast following a rally he had spoken at.^[3]

In the 1960s he campaigned against Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O'Neill's rapprochement with the Republic of Ireland and his meetings with Taoiseach of the Republic, Seán Lemass, a veteran of Easter 1916 and the anti-Treaty IRA. He opposed efforts by O'Neill to deliver civil rights to the minority nationalist community in Northern Ireland, notably the abolition of gerrymandering of local electoral areas for the election of urban and county councils. In 1964 his demand that the RUC remove an Irish Tricolour from Sinn Féin's Belfast offices led to two days of rioting, after this was followed through (see Flags and Emblems Act – the public display of any symbol which could cause a breach of the peace was illegal until the mid-1980s). Paisley's approach (summed up in his catchphrase "no surrender") led him in turn to attack O'Neill's successors as prime minister, Major James Chichester-Clark (later called Lord Moyola) and Brian Faulkner.

In 1966 he helped to set up the Ulster Constitution Defence Committee (UCDC) and the paramilitary Ulster Protestant Volunteers (UPV). The UPV commenced a bombing campaign in order to destabilise O'Neill's government. This group later amalgamated with the Ulster Volunteer Force, with which it had an overlapping membership. In March 1969, he was jailed along with Ronald Bunting (whose son, Ronnie Bunting, went on to join the INLA, and was assassinated) for organising an illegal counter-demonstration against a Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association march in Armagh. He was released during a general amnesty for people convicted of political offences.

British Government papers released in 2002, show that in 1971 Paisley attempted to reach a compromise with the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The attempt was made via then British Cabinet Secretary, Sir Burke Trend. The papers show that Dr Paisley had indicated he could "reach an accommodation with leaders of the Catholic minority, which would provide the basis of a new government in Stormont." It appears that the move was rejected once it became clear to the SDLP that the deal would favour the unionist majority. Speaking about the deal in 2002 Paisley said:

"The SDLP did not want to go along the road that we would have wanted them to go. I wouldn't say there were talks, there was an exchange of views between us, but it never got anywhere. We were prepared to try and seek a way whereby we could govern Northern Ireland and that people of both faiths could be happy with the way it was being governed, but it all rested on the key point - the person with power would be the person that the people gave the power."^[4]

Paisley opposed the 1972 suspension by the British government of Edward Heath of the Northern Ireland parliament and government (known collectively by the term Stormont due to the location of Parliament Buildings on the Stormont estate). He opposed the Sunningdale Agreement which sought to rework relationships between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and which provided for a power-sharing executive (government) involving both communities in Northern Ireland, and a controversial (among unionists) all-island Council of Ireland linking Northern Ireland and the Republic on a legal but not constitutional level. Sunningdale collapsed following the Ulster Workers' Strike, which cut water and electricity supplies to many homes, and the failure of the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees and the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to defend the power-sharing executive. Supporters of Paisley played an important role in orchestrating the strike. In January 1974, he (Paisley) was subdued and thrown out of the Stormont Assembly by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

In April 1977 Paisley famously declared he would retire from politics if a forthcoming United Unionist Action Council general strike was unsuccessful. The strike failed, but Paisley did not keep the promise.

Political Life

In the 1970 Westminster general election Paisley was elected MP for the North Antrim constituency which he has retained ever since and is now the longest serving MP from Northern Ireland. The following year Paisley, sometimes known as Big Ian, Dr. No, or the Ayatollah, established the most successful and longest lasting of his political movements, the Democratic Unionist Party which replaced his Protestant Unionist Party. It soon won seats at local council, province, national and European level; Paisley was elected one of Northern Ireland's three Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) at the first elections to the Brussels and Strasbourg-based European Parliament in 1979. On his first day he attempted to interrupt the then President of the European Council Jack Lynch, but was shouted down by fellow MEPs. In an address by Pope John Paul II to the Parliament in 1988, Paisley accused him of being the Antichrist (see Historicism), repeatedly interrupting his speech by shouting and holding up placards. He was removed from the chamber by other MEPs disgusted at his behaviour. He easily retained his seat in every European election until he stood down in 2004, receiving the highest popular vote of any Irish or British MEP (although as Northern Ireland uses a different electoral system for European elections, the figures are not strictly comparable).

The DUP also holds nine seats in the British House of Commons and has been elected to each of the Northern Ireland conventions and assemblies set up since the party's creation. For a long time it was the principal challenger to the major unionist party, the Ulster Unionist Party (known for a time in the 1970s and 1980s as the Official Unionist Party (OUP) to distinguish it from the then multitude of other unionist parties, some set up by deposed former leaders). In February 1981 Paisley claimed the UUP were conspiring to kill him. In December of the same year the United States revoked his visa, concerned at the effects of his inflammatory speeches, which often fomented violence.

In the 2003 Northern Ireland Assembly elections, the DUP overtook the UUP, achieving 30 seats to the UUP's 27, and in the 2005 UK General Election, achieving almost twice their voteshare and taking nine seats to the UUP's one (successfully unseating then UUP leader David Trimble).

Ian Paisley says 'Ulster says no'

In the 1980s Paisley, like all the major unionist leaders, opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement (1985), signed by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Irish Taoiseach (prime minister) Dr. Garret FitzGerald. The AIA provided for an Irish input into the governing of Northern Ireland, through an Anglo-Irish Secretariat based at Maryfield, outside Belfast and meetings of the Anglo-Irish Conference, co-chaired by the Republic's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Britain's Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Vast crowds attended mass rallies addressed by then UUP leader James Molyneaux and Paisley at which the slogan "Ulster Says No" was used to express unionist opposition by what its critics alleged was a form of joint authority over Northern Ireland. Paisley was once again ejected from the European Parliament for continually interrupting a speech by Thatcher. Masked RUC men told a television interviewer they would refuse to enforce any aspect of the Agreement^{citation needed]}. Paisley controversially set up an unofficial paramilitary unit which met secretly called the Third Force, which began to import arms from South Africa. However though violent resistance to what was claimed to be "Dublin rule" was threatened, it did not materialise from the Third Force, which was soon discredited and faded away.

A Loyalist organisation was formed on 10 November 1986 by Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Peter Robinson of the DUP, and Ivan Foster. The initial aim of Ulster Resistance was to bring an end to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Following a rally in the Ulster Hall in Belfast, other rallies were held in towns across Northern Ireland. The group was organised in nine 'battalions' simlar to those of the (Boy's Brigade) and members wore a red hat. In November 1988 there was an arms find in County Armagh and the subsequent arrest of a former DUP election candidate brought accusations of links between DUP politicians and armed paramilitary groups, Dr Paisley at this time apealed to the majority to cease any violent struggle . The DUP demonstrated party links with the organisation had ended in 1987. Two members of Ulster Resistance were arrested in April 1987 in Paris along with a South African diplomat. It is alleged by some catholic groups that the weapons imported from South Africa were divided between the UDA, the UVF and Ulster Resistance.

In January 1981, he appeared on a hillside at night with 500 men brandishing firearms licences and later had a brief alliance with Ulster Resistance, which (like the UDA at the time) was not an illegal organisation. The DUP now down plays this association.

In 1985 he and the rest of the Unionist MPs resigned from Parliament at Westminster in protest at the Anglo-Irish Agreement and were all but one (Jim Nicholson, who lost his seat to the SDLP's Seamus Mallon) returned in the resulting by-elections.

In 1995 he played a part in the first standoff over marching at Drumcree, County Armagh between the Orange Order and local residents of the Garvagh Road. The march passed off after negotiation between the Order and residents and Dr.Paisley ended the march hand in hand with David Trimble who appeared to perform a "Victory Jig". This "Victory Jig" was widely seen as an act of triumphalism.^[5]

The Belfast Agreement

Paisley's DUP was initially involved in the negotiations under former United States senator, George J. Mitchell that led to the Belfast Agreement of 1998 (also known as the Good Friday Agreement on account of the day on which it was signed.) However the party withdrew in protest when Sinn Féin, a republican party with links to the Provisional Irish Republican Army, was allowed to participate after the ceasefire. In March 1998 a senior member of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (an offshoot of the UVF)in a newspaper interview said Paisley had got it "absolutely right". Paisley and his party opposed the Agreement in the referendum that followed its signing, and which saw it approved reasonably comfortably in Northern Ireland and by over 90% of voters in the Republic of Ireland.

Although Paisley often stresses his loyalty to the Crown, he accused Queen Elizabeth of being Tony Blair's "parrot" when she voiced approval of the Agreement.

As part of the deal, the Republic changed the wording of the controversial Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution of Ireland, which had originally claimed its government's de jure right to govern the whole island of Ireland, including Northern Ireland.

The DUP fought the resulting election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, to which Paisley was elected, while keeping his seats in the Westminster and European parliaments. The DUP took two seats in the multi-party power-sharing executive (Paisley, like the leaders of the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Féin chose not to become a minister) but those DUP members serving as ministers (Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds) refused to attend meetings of the Executive Committee (cabinet) in protest at Sinn Féin's participation. The Executive ultimately was suspended over unionist unhappiness on the nature of Provisional IRA disarmament (The Provisional IRA and Sinn Féin justified this by drawing attention to the fact that others' parties to the deal, notably the unionists and the British Government, were slow in implementing other areas of the Agreement, such as demilitarisation and policing reform, that were of great importance to republicans). The alleged discovery of a republican spy network operating among civil servants in the seat of government and parliament, Stormont, led to the UUP's decision to suspend the institutions created under the Belfast Agreement. (Despite many arrests and the confiscation of a large amount of material by the PSNI during a widely publicised investigation, no convictions resulted. In December 2005, the supposed ringleader, Sinn Féin's Denis Donaldson, was exposed as a British intelligence agent who was originally recruited in the 1980s. On a point of interest, shortly before his murder on 4 April 2006, Donaldson denied there had ever been any IRA spy ring in Stormont.)

While the Agreement has not been scrapped, its institutions remain suspended, pending a resolution of the issues of policing, demilitarisation and paramilitary disarmament and the full implementation of all the Agreement's provisions. The DUP have repeatedly pledged to destroy the Agreement, however in recent times since becoming the leading Unionist Party have backed it with the 'Comprehensive Agreement' (December 2004) where the principles of the Belfast Agreement where upheld.

On the 22 May 2006 Ian Paisley refused Sinn Féin's nomination to be First Minister.

A Complex Man

Though fiercely anti-Catholic, and often condemned for using extreme and provocative language against Roman Catholicism, Paisley has nonetheless attracted a small number of Catholic votes in his Westminster and European constituencies. Though critical of the Republic of Ireland, he has religious followers in the Republic; and it was specifically in this capacity that he agreed to meet the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, in Government Buildings in Dublin. He reversed this stance when he met Bertie Ahern in Dublin in September 2004 in his capacity as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party. At a further meeting with Ahern, at the Irish embassy in London, when offered breakfast Paisley characteristically asked for boiled eggs, joking that "it would be hard for [Ahern] to poison them" [1]. Paisley, an ardent teetotaller all his life, often asked journalists and nationalist politicians "let me smell your breath" when they asked him particularly tough questions, insinuating they had first taken on board some "Dutch courage".

From the 1960s, one of his main rivals was civil rights leader and second leader of the nationalist SDLP, John Hume (a family guest lats Boxing day) (see BBC Norther Ireland interview). Though their parties are often at loggerheads, Hume and Paisley worked jointly on behalf of Northern Ireland in the European Parliament and on occasion worked jointly in the House of Commons. Indeed the complexity of their relationship was demonstrated when it was discovered that Hume had visited Paisley's home to dine with Ian and his wife, Eileen, on St. Stephen's Day one year in the 1990s. When Hume resigned the leadership of the SDLP, Paisley gave very warm praise of "John" and a very accurate estimation of how difficult the SDLP would find it to fill the void left by the departing leader. Some suggested that the comments by Paisley were given because he thought he was just chatting to journalists and that the TV cameras weren't on. The sight of an affable, low-key Paisley at that moment contrasted with the usual media image of the forceful, loud, aggressive Paisley people were used to seeing.

In one particular instance of irony, having spent most of his career, as he himself jokingly admitted once, saying 'No', Paisley assumed the chairmanship of the Agriculture committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly created by the Belfast Agreement, where he was praised (even by Sinn Féin members with whom he worked) as an effective, co-ordinating chairman. He had a particularly good working relationship with the Minister for Agriculture, the SDLP's Bríd Rodgers, an Irish-speaking Nationalist.

Defender or Demagogue?

His critics see his work in the European Parliament and in Stormont of late and argue that he could have been, had he so wished, one of the greatest builders of a new inclusive Northern Ireland. To his supporters, Ian Kyle Paisley is seen as a passionate and brilliant defender of the union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. They argue that he stood up for unionists who were under attack from nationalists, from the Republic of Ireland and from British governments willing to give away "unionist rights" and ignore unionist fears to placate nationalists and the IRA. To one side, he is seen as the wrecker whose extremism almost destroyed Northern Ireland. To the other, Ian Paisley is the great defender, the protector who saved Northern Ireland from "Rome Rule" and "Dublin rule".

To his opponents however, Paisley is seen as a demagogue, a crude rabble-rouser who spent his political career saying 'no' and being passed by; no to O'Neill's reform, no to contacts with the Republic, no to Sunningdale, no to the convention, no to James Prior's rolling devolution, no to the Anglo-Irish Agreement, no to the Belfast Agreement. To his opponents (including many in unionism) he is seen as a uniquely destructive influence whose extremism lost potential friends and helped alienate people outside Northern Ireland sympathetic to unionism. In the 1980s, the UK Unionist Party's Robert McCartney described Paisley as a fascist. Former members of loyalist terrorist groups on ceasefire because of the Good Friday Agreement verbally attacked Paisley at one press conference, saying that as impressionable teenagers they had been attracted to extreme loyalism by his violent and provocative speeches, blaming him for much of the violence that resulted. Paisley has never accepted any culpability for any violence, despite his many fiery speeches, which often presented the political conflict in stark Biblical terms as a millenarian battle between good and evil (see Historicism).

In September 2005, he was criticised for stoking unionist violence in Belfast over the 75-metre diversion of a provocative Orange Order march along a thoroughfare serving as a boundary between nationalist and unionist communities. Quoted by The Guardian newspaper, he called the diversion "the spark which kindles a fire there could be no putting out" [2]. Widespread loyalist riots followed, producing, among other results, what Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain called "serious attempts to kill police in some instances".[3]

Campaign against homosexuality

Main article: Save Ulster from Sodomy

Save Ulster from Sodomy" was a campaign launched by Paisley in 1977, in opposition to the Campaign for Homosexual Law Reform (Northern Ireland), 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. The 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.^[6]

Octogenarian activities

Paisley has been in physically poor health in recent years, and has aged noticeably which is unsurprising now that he is in his 80s. He has lowered his political profile, instead devoting much of his time to working with his church on the missions in Africa, where he has some followers. On 19 January 2004, he announced he would not be standing for the European Parliament in the 2004 elections at the age of 78. Both admired and held in contempt, Ian Paisley defied his critics in early 2005 by confirming he would again contest the North Antrim seat in the next British general election in 2005, which he won, at the age of 79. He traditionally celebrates every election victory with a hymn in the count centre. Paisley was made a Privy Councillor on 21 October 2005,[4] a post to which he became entitled as leader of the fourth largest political party in the British Parliament. In February 2006, he said he never intends to retire from politics.

Currently his party controls half of Northern Ireland's seats in Westminster, and holds about a third of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly and the district councils. His DUP deputy leader, Peter Robinson has served as a Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, where he acquitted himself well, and is seen as a possible First Minister of Northern Ireland in the next Northern Ireland Executive, especially after Paisley's rejection of the post on 2006-05-22. Robinson is predicted to move the DUP to a more moderate, pragmatic position within electoral unionism. Robinson may, however, be challenged for the leadership by Ian Paisley, Jr., Paisley's son, or, more likely, by Nigel Dodds. Both are seen to represent the party's rural conservative base.

2004 illness and beyond

In July 2004 Paisley's family stated that he had been undergoing tests for an undisclosed illness. The family suggested that the release of the information was to quell widespread rumours within Northern Ireland and abroad that Paisley was suffering from a potentially terminal illness; widespread rumours in Northern Ireland suggested either cancer or heart disease. The family declined to indicate the nature of the suspected illness, citing privacy. Though the family statement was reported in general terms, the media in Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland unusually opted not to speculate as to the nature, if any, of Paisley's illness. Political opponents, both unionist and nationalist, also declined to discuss the marked physical deterioration in Paisley's health other than to wish him a full recovery. Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin's chief negotiator, commented: "I look forward to sharing power with Ian Paisley, if he survives."

In 2005, Paisley's son, Ian confirmed that his father had been gravely ill in 2004 and suggested that his family had prepared for what they feared was his impending death. While the full nature of the illness has not been confirmed, Paisley by 2005 had made a recovery, and noticeably gained in weight again.

He is now happy with his health.

Family

Ian Paisley married his wife Eileen (née Cassells) on 13 October 1956. It was announced on 11 April 2006 that Eileen will be one of three DUP politicans to be created a life peer, giving the DUP its first representation in the House of Lords. They have five children, twin sons, Kyle and Ian, and three daughters including Rhonda. Three of their children have followed their father into politics or religion: Kyle, into the church; Ian is a DUP assemblyman; and daughter Rhonda a retired DUP councillor and artist.

Famous Quotes

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In 1958 he denounced Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother for "committing spiritual fornication and adultery with the Antichrist", after a visit by them to the new Pope, John XXIII.
"This Romish man of sin is now in Hell!" – to a packed Ulster Hall after the death of Pope John XXIII in June 1963.
"I will kill all who get in my way", after a loyalist rally in 1968. He shouted this out at some reporters.
When Terence O'Neill arrived at Stormont for a meeting with Sean Lemass, Paisley shouted at his car "No mass! No Lemass!"
After a loyalist rally in 1968, Ian Paisley claimed: "Catholic homes caught fire because they were loaded with petrol bombs; Catholic churches were attacked and burned because they were arsenals and priests handed out sub-machine guns to parishioners." He also said discrimination in employment and allocation of public housing for Catholics existed because "they breed like rabbits and multiply like vermin."
In reference to the Ulster Unionist Party's Jewish candidate, Harold Smith, he said, "The Unionist party are boasting he (Harold Smith) is a Jew. As a Jew, he rejects our Lord Jesus, the New Testament, Protestant principles, the Glorious Reformation and the sanctity of the Lord's day. The Protestant throne and the Protestant constitution are nothing to him."
In 1968, in a heated debate with the fierce Republican Bernadette Devlin, he responded to her accusations of his hypocrisy by saying that he "would rather be British than be fair".
During a visit by Pope John Paul II to the European Parliament in 1988, Paisley shouted "I denounce you, Anti-Christ!" several times before being ejected. The whole incident can be heard on sermonaudio.com
"We are not prepared to stand idly by and be murdered in our beds."
"Save Ulster from sodomy!" – Paisley's slogan in a 1970s and 80s campaign against legalising homosexuality.
Addressing a crowd at Loughgall; "I am anti-Roman Catholic, but God being my judge, I love the poor dupes who are ground down under that system."
"The Provisional IRA is the military wing of the Roman Catholic Church."
Describing the then head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Tomás Ó Fiaich; "The IRA's bishop from Crossmaglen".
"I would never repudiate the fact that I am an Irishman."
"Ulster Resistance is not for the faint or half hearted and we will use all means which are deemed necessary to defeat the Agreement." Ulster Resistance rally, Belfast, November 1986.
"We know your church to be the mother of harlots and the abomination of the earth."
Paisley called Pope John XXIII a "Roman anti-Christ" and referred to the Catholic Church as the "Harlot of Babylon."
"We're on the verge of civil war in Northern Ireland. Why? Because if you take away the forums of democracy you don't have anything left." After being manhandled out of Stormont June 1986.^[7]
"Line dancing is as sinful as any other type of dancing, with its sexual gestures and touching. It is an incitement to lust."
Paisley did not give a sermon on the wailing and gnashing of teeth in hell, then say "Teeth will be provided!" to a toothless parishioner. [5] This is a joke from a 1976 edition of the BBC's Dave Allen show, where Allen imitated Paisley.

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