Overview
The controversial figure of Rev Ian Paisley is unlikely to be forgotten either by his friends or opponents. His surprising late embrace of power-sharing in Northern Ireland, which gave him the post of First Minister, overshadowed many infamous events that he initiated and in which he participated. The increased popularity of Paisley’s religious message and Free Presbyterian Church had started before the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Campaign of 1967-1968. His support as a political figure expanded as a result of the struggle between the liberal unionism inherent to Prime Minister O’Neill’s ideology and Paisley’s resistance to the latter. Employing set-piece public provocation of the Unionist establishment, the street politics that Paisley pursued allowed for the growth in popular Protestant support for the extreme views that he and his close colleagues held. Despite O’Neill’s efforts to ban the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) that was linked to Paisley, the measures fell short due to the strengthening of the impact of his political and religious views. The combination of Protestantism and Unionism was a unique approach that allowed Paisley to rise to power.
Role of Religion
Paisley was a religious fundamentalist, which had a significant impact on his politics and activism. Fundamentalism is characterized by highly individualist beliefs and the absence of trust in authority figures or any hierarchical structures. In addition, it is associated with a strict reading of the Bible, which allows for no leniency or flexibility in religious beliefs. Because of the individualistic beliefs that Paisley held, he was able to engage in more intense personal activism on the streets, which attracted people and led them also to engage. His distrust of authority figures and the strict reading of the Bible, specifically the book of Revelation, encouraged the infamous naming of Pope John II as the Antichrist. Those who agreed with such a perspective and were attracted to Paisley’s charisma and morals followed him.
It should be noted that religious fundamentalism inherent to Paisley went far beyond religion. His political views were predominantly entirely based on his religious perspectives, with the two being closely connected to the point of being indistinguishable. Thus, in contrast to any other political group in the Northern Ireland landscape, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) had its roots in religion, even though some parties had religious affiliations. What set DUP apart from its rivals was that its political policies were based almost entirely on affiliated religious beliefs. This led to a significant unwillingness to compromise on spiritual issues and a refusal to compromise with any parties involved in the conflict, including the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), as well as legitimizing the fear of the Catholic Church. Overall, the basis in religion made the DUP a more extremist and hardline party than the UUP. This left Paisley’s party in a static position in which the fear of an undesirable solution to the conflict resulted in the refusal to solve it altogether. Consequently, the party’s fundamentalism was a significant reason for the perpetuation of conflict, known as The Troubles, for three decades.
The role of religion is important to the rise of Paisley’s popularity because his sermons often contained preaching about the various evil forces that ran rampant in the world and how it was the duty of the faithful to resist the injustices. Notably, when the Catholics initiated their civil rights movement, Paisley connected them to a nationalist and later to a papal plot to gain control over Northern Ireland. His opposition to the Catholic church was evident in the sermons; he said, “You can’t be quick enough with the sword.” Such encouragement of violence was not the sole factor in the reactionary loyalist movement but was instrumental in prompting others to retaliate against a perceived nationalist plot. In turn, this led to the establishment of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and arguably the beginning of The Troubles period.
The Government Threatened
The space that the activities and processes led by Paisley captured in the columns of newspapers while the United Kingdom-wide television coverage intensified the House of Commons and Senate debates. Governmental figures felt threatened by the uprise of the movement, noting that “a real threat to the peace of the Province seems to be developing – a situation which could do immeasurable harm to Ulster if it is not checked. […] an equal or even greater threat is posed at present by extremist Protestant groups, many of whom are members or loyalist organizations.” This excerpt from the letter of Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Inspector-General, A. H. Kennedy, to J. E. Greeves in the Ministry of Home Affairs is highly relevant because it shows that officials felt weary of Paisley’s growing influence and feared its implications.
Further, Inspector-General provides an overview of what the RUC called ‘The Paisleyite Movement,’ which “came into being after the formation of the Free Presbyterian Church following the breakaway from the Presbyterian Church in 1951.” Its moderator, Ian Paisley, is regarded as an idealist and the professed opponent of the Roman doctrine, succeeding in increasing Church membership. Moreover, Paisley’s attempts to preach against the Prime Minister and the Government members, accusing them of “selling Ulster down the drain,” did not go unnoticed, thus fueling the rivalry between the Government and Paisleyites.
Paisley and his followers started causing more concerns for the ruling party as a result of their protest regarding the naming of the Lagan Bridge in Belfast in February 1966. Even more attention to the movement was attracted by the big protest march in Belfast in April 1966 that called against the Government allowing Irish Republican Celebrations to occur in different parts of the province commemorating the 1916 Rising in Ireland. Out of the April protests over the Easter Celebrations, Paisley estimated that he had the following of at least twenty thousand followers in Belfast.
From the statements of the Inspector-General and the Prime Minister followed the conviction that connections existed between the UVF and Paisley, which led to O’Neill’s statement prohibiting the force, referring to the information from the RUC report prepared by the Inspector-General. The report suggested that the UVF was regarded as the militant wing of the Paisleyite Movement, with small divisions formed in Belfast, Counties Antrim, Tyrone, and Armagh, which allowed it to strengthen the impact of political unrest. Notably, by June 1966, the government under the leadership of O’Neill faced the challenge of responding to the widening unrest caused by the Paisleyite demonstrations in Belfast. The Government was experiencing significant pressure since the protests outside the Presbyterian Assembly in June to limit the processions of the Paisleyites. Moreover, the murder of Peter Ward outside the bar on Malvern Street exposed the violent side of the events in Belfast at that point. Therefore, O’Neill was forced to announce that the UVF was an illegal force.
As a way of responding to the accusations made by the Government, Paisley denied the associations between the Ulster Constitution Defense Committee that he led and the Ulster Volunteer Force. The ban allegedly did not affect the Paisleyite movement because there were no connections between the two organizations, even though O’Neill continued providing evidence for their links. Threatened by Paisley’s undoubted influence in the protest scene in Belfast, as well as the continued street violence throughout the summer of 1966, the Government had to take action. Paisley and two other Free Presbyterian Church Ministers were imprisoned for leading the protests, which, in turn, caused a new wave of opposition in the streets. Their supporters engaged in several nights of disturbances near Crumlin Road Prison, where they had been held, with looting and raids resulting in significant damage to property in that area. Even though Paisley sent a message to stop the rioting, the politics of that time were evidently developing in the streets.
Paisley’s role in O’Neill’s resignation through a violent campaign cannot be hidden. Through a series of attacks on the electricity and water supply in Belfast, pressure was expected to be put on the Prime Minister’s administration as it was unable to guarantee peace in the region. It was suggested by Paisley that the IRA was responsible for the attacks, thus providing an “ominous indication of what lies ahead of Ulster.” However, several days later after the initial attacks, Localists bombed water supplies, confident that the IRA was the main suspect. As the events were highly publicized, O’Neill had no other option but to resign, later stating that the explosions “literally blew [him] out of office.” Thus, Paisley’s influence and the availability of a propaganda tool in the form of the Protestant Telegraph successfully destabilized the position of the leading player in Northern Irish politics. This example shows that Paisley did not have many reservations when it came to winning battles against his rivals.
Role in Peace Process
What is essential to understand about the nature of Paisley’s figure in Northern Irish politics is that he had undergone a transformation in his path, from violent protests to peacemaking. As noted by Nagle in a remembrance article about Paisley’s contribution, he used to be jokingly referred to as “Dr. No” by his opponents due to the hard-won reputation of resisting any opportunity for achieving a peaceful compromise in Northern Ireland. However, despite the deep dislike for Roman Catholicism, Paisley had taken a significant role in getting the peace process back to life. This process offered him an opportunity to secure a longstanding legacy as a leader securing Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom along with an agreement between nationalists and unionists.
Notably, the path to peace that Paisley had completed illustrates that he wanted to be accepted on his own terms. Until the shift in perspective, his career included a series of radical interventions against the leading party and its effort to get the Northern Ireland conflict under control. For instance, in 1974, both the UK and Irish Governments attempted to implement a new power-sharing deal to end violence in the country, and Paisley led thousands of his followers onto the streets, including paramilitaries, in order to stop the arrangement. Further, in 1985, when Prime Minister Thatcher was looking for ways to secure an agreement between the UK and the Republic of Ireland, Paisley gave a speech to half a million protestors in Belfast to halt any hope of a permanent deal. However, he did not have enough leverage to prevent the historic 1998 peace deal, the Good Friday Agreement. His golden moment for peacemaking came later as the power-sharing government started collapsing under the pressure of newly emerging challenges.
Paisley’s party, the Democratic Unionist Party, which opposed the establishment, defeated the more moderate Ulster Unionists, which made him the only leader with sufficient popular support to lead unionism into new negotiations with nationalists for resurrecting the peace process. A favorable environment was starting to get set up as leaders like Tony Blair acknowledged that stability was more likely to be reached when the respective extremists of unionism and nationalism were accommodated. Thus, Paisley was no longer treated as an opponent but rather as a leader of a force with which the majority should collaborate. When he got inside the Government as the first minister, Paisley shifted his perspective and became more accommodating than anticipated. Thus, the journey from a political and religious provocateur to a peacemaker in the government gave Paisley an improved reputation by which he would be remembered, even though the times of violent protests would never be erased from memory.
Bibliography
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Farrington, Christopher. “Mobilization, State Crisis and Counter-Mobilization: Ulster Unionist Politics and the Outbreak of The Troubles.” Irish Political Studies 23, no. 4 (2008): 513-532.
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