If the cap fits ...

ONE of the great challenges facing us all is to have the courage and honesty to see ourselves as others see us. It is not always a cheering experience, but it is always worthwhile.

In that context, the suggestion that the family of the late Ian Paisley has sought legal advice on remarks made by flautist James Galway, who suggested on BBC radio that the former DUP leader and founder of the Free Presbyterian Church was indirectly responsible for some deaths during the conflict in the North, seems strange.

Belfast-born Galway said: “... he was a religious leader. How many people do you think he was responsible for killing indirectly by planting the thoughts of violence and no surrender in the heads of people who had no more sense?”

Paisley was many things during his long career. He was a demagogue, a bully, a bigot, and, as his display in the European Parliament when he tried to shout down Pope John Paul II showed, rabidly anti-Catholic. These facts stand despite his famous sense of humour and the avuncular, bubble brothers persona he adopted in his senior years.