DUP’s long history of flirting with violence

COMMENTING on DUP criticism of the proposed Northern Assembly link between the UUP and David Ervine’s PUP, Peter Molloy (Irish Examiner letters, May 19) reminds us of the actions of DUP leader Ian Paisley in assembling 500 men in military formation holding aloft gun licences in 1981. He also reminds us of the actions of DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson in 1986 when he led an incursion into Clontibret in a sinister manoeuvre intended to expose the vulnerability of border communities.

If Mr Molloy had engaged in a cursory Google on Ulster Resistance, he would have read of the hypocrisy and double standards of the DUP. In November 1986, Paisley, Robinson and Ivan Foster founded Ulster Resistance whose aim was to end the Anglo-Irish Agreement.

Paisley warned that Ulster Resistance was not for “the faint or half-hearted”, and pledged that they would use “all means which may be found necessary to defeat the Anglo-Irish Agreement”.

At an Ulster Resistance rally in Belfast in November 1986, Paisley, Robinson and former Belfast mayor Sammy Wilson donned red berets while flanked by men in military-style uniforms.

In April 1987, in Paris, two members of Ulster Resistance were arrested along with a South African diplomat. It was claimed there had been an attempt to exchange information on Shorts’ missile technology for weapons.

Dr Paisley is also moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church.

Tom Cooper

23 Delaford Lawn

Knocklyon

Dublin 16.