The good and the bad sides of Ian Paisley

While out walking at lunchtime last Friday I heard the news of the death or Ian Paisley.

I listened intensively to the RTÉ radio and I thought of how when writing about the death of famous politicians it said that “Every one of our leaders was a giant among men.”

I was born in 1963 and have a great memory. Ian Paisley was a very dangerous individual who was responsible for the death of many dozens of people or even hundreds, not by the deed itself but by his vitriolic demagoguery, which as a young boy growing up in the North I had to listen to. His words and actions led to the imprisonment of many hundreds of young Protestants who were swayed by his words and actions.

I have so many vivid memories of bits of body images from the television era of the last sixties, seventies and eighties resulting from this man and from the gangsters that were his opponents in the so-called republic movement.

I won’t miss him, but again another memory is of my late mother who wrote to Paisley about a house for one of my sisters. When I asked her why she was doing that, she said “Well, Paul, that other shower (the SDLP) won’t get do anything for us.

Paul Doran

27 Monastery Walk

Clondalkin

Dublin 22