Ian Paisley: Big man took the long road to Damascus

The fiery demagogue took a long time to agree to ‘break bread’, writes Michael Clifford

THE two sides to Ian Paisley were evident to a number of politicians in the Republic who interacted with him when he was in his prime in the 1980s and 1990s.

Gerry Collins, who served in a number of Fianna Fáil governments before going on to represent Munster as an MEP, encountered Paisley in a number of the offices he held.

“He picketed my office when I was minister for justice and he picketed when I was minister for foreign affairs,” Mr Collins remembers.

“He announced very loudly in public that he was visiting to hand in a protest letter. I gave an invitation to sit down and have tea, but he wouldn’t. Despite the fact we were both involved in initiatives for peace — from different perspectives — we never had a sit-down conversation.”

Later, when Collins was elected to the European Parliament, their paths crossed again, as Paisley was also a member.

“I was often in his company in Europe, but we never engaged in a conversation. At that stage he was a different Ian Paisley from the one who had a conversion on the road to Damascus. Undoubtedly, when he became leader of his side, totally in control, he then decided he would change his approach and he did something we are all grateful for. He made it possible for us to have the peace we have today.”

Dermot Ahern grew up in the border county of Louth, in the shadow of Paisley’s rhetoric about Catholics and the evils of the southern state. Later, Ahern would play a major role in the peace process, first as a facilitator while a backbench TD and later as minister for foreign affairs.

“I grew up with him being the demagogue and rabble-rouser he was and at that time he was seen as the epitome of anti-Catholicism and anti-nationalism and everything we stood for. Then, years later, I got to know him when I was involved in the peace process,” Ahern says.

His earlier recollections, however, were of Paisley’s attempts to stymie efforts for peace, particularly the Sunningdale Agreement in 1974. Later, when Dermot Ahern first assumed ministerial office, he recalls Paisley protesting outside meetings between politicians from North and South.

Later, when Paisley was willing to ‘break bread’, Ahern was present for the famous 2007 meeting between the big man and Bertie Ahern at Farmleigh. The occasion was memorable for the gregarious manner in which Paisley emerged from his car and moved to grasp Bertie Ahern in a hearty handshake. Yet, Dermot Ahern could not wipe from his memory an earlier version of the self-styled Reverend.

“All during those years I still could not get out of my mind the pictures of him standing in front of large crowds, decrying the Pope, decrying Catholicism. I often wondered why it took him so long to change and I have to say that I became convinced his wife Eileen was a huge influence on him — when he was in his 80s he said to me on many occasions, in private, that we had to move on for the sake of children and grandchildren.”

Their interaction wasn’t always cordial, even at the height of the peace process. In 2006, Ahern took Paisley to task for an attack on then president Mary McAleese.

Their exchanges grew heated. “I told him I regarded [his attack] as an insult to the President and to us in the Republic. He came back and said how the Republic had historically been a sectarian state. I said I wasn’t going to take any lectures from him about sectarianism. By that stage, the officials were swallowing their tongues.”

Ruairi Quinn was another whose tenure in two governments coincided with Paisley in full rhetorical flow. He also has mixed feelings on the day of the big man’s demise.

“My sympathies go to his family but it took him a hell of a long time to get to Damascus,” Quinn says.

“Between him and Sinn Féin/IRA, that compromise deal was on the table a long time and it had cross-community support and that’s what we’ve ended up with. They neutered the other two parties [SDLP and the Ulster Unionists] and now that relationship is by their own admission dysfunctional. We’re mourning the death of a major figure who did bring peace but it was a long time after the solution was clear to everybody.

“His legacy now is that he and Sinn Féin/IRA could have made that compromise earlier and we wouldn’t have had a lot of the violence that endured.”