Ian Paisley: The bigot who died a peacemaker

Nearly every culture clings to the idea of redemption, because without that prospect, whether it is real or not, it would almost be too hard to be human.

Nearly every society accepts that if a person recognises that they have done great wrong and that if they change their behaviour profoundly, they might be seen in a new light and ultimately forgiven.

In the last century there can hardly have been a person born on this island who seemed more certain of his rightness, of his cause, of his extreme beliefs, of his no-surrender political position and his hatred of Catholics and Catholicism than Ian Richard Kyle Paisley was for the great majority of his amazing, complex, and contradictory life.