Ian Paisley’s words as deadly as weapons

Despite his ultimate conversion, perhaps opportunistic, to the principles of democracy, Ian Paisley’s hate-filled rhetoric left a trail of dead bodies in its wake. TP O’Mahony reviews a mixed legacy.

THE Rev Ian Paisley was the embodiment of a phenomenon that regularly provides headlines today, primarily because of the volatile and bloody situation in the Middle East — political religion that is extremist in language, precept and form.

Through the agency of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, which he established on 17 March 1951, Paisley harnessed religion to the political ideology of hardline, fundamentalist unionism, with far-reaching repercussions for Northern Ireland.