UKC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-29177705

I'm sure there will be divided views, I liked him. RIP

In reply to Denni:

My parents did not. He caused a lot of hatred and anger.

In reply to Denni:

If there is a God, Rev Paisley will be spending eternity in the Vatican.

In reply to Denni:


I didn't, but there again I didn't like Adams or McGuinness either. The world might have been better had he chosen to keep quiet - if there's a god I hope it's a forgiving one. But a sad time for his family nontheless.

In reply to Denni:

The world would be a better place without zealots like him.

In reply to The Lemming:


My Mum refused to shake his hand on two separate occasions.

In reply to The Lemming:

As DO Adams and McGuinness surely.

In reply to Denni:

Brilliant news. Thanks for cheering up my day.

In reply to Denni:

My uncle filmed an interview with him for RTE at his home. Paisley offered the crew a glass of whiskey - he had a special bottle he kept for the "Taigs"

In reply to Denni:

I am feeling a similar amount of loss and grief as when Baroness Thatcher died

In reply to mypyrex:


Have they died?

In reply to The New NickB:


Excellent

In reply to The New NickB:

I'm thinking he would find himself surrounded by kindred spirits - same coin just different sides.

In reply to The New NickB:


No but they remain no better than Paisley was during his lifetime.

In reply to cander:


Yes, he would hate it. Nothing people with a certain personality hate more than people like them. Don't forget of course that Paisley firmly believed the Pope to be the Devil walking on Earth. If there is a God, Paisley's hell is in Rome.

In reply to mypyrex:


But having not died, they are not the subject of this thread. Perhaps we could open it up to include Assad, George W Bush and Rolf Harris.

In reply to mypyrex:


Far worse surely.

Whatever his (many) faults, Ian Paisley was not personally involved in multiple brutal murders, or in ordering those murders to take place.

In reply to Denni:


I don't care what other people think. I just say NO, NO, NEVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!

In reply to Simon4:


Not sue I want to get in to this, but they also accepted the peace at great personal risk. Paisley never did. I'm not a fan of any of them, neither am I an theist, but I believe Jesus is reputed to have had something to say about such things.

In reply to The New NickB:

Some surprising people liked him on a personal level quite a lot - Mo Mowlem and Martin McGuiness, for 2.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


I know. Both relationships are interesting, but as a public figure he should be judged on his public actions.

In reply to Simon4:



Yes, a regular little saint, was he.

In reply to Skip:


My grandmother did by mistake and regretted it for the rest of her life!

In reply to The New NickB:

Or sprinkle his coffin with scented dried petals...

In reply to The New NickB:

I became a lot more sympathetic towards him once he became first minister - and his antipathy towards the Catholic church seems more justified now in the light of abuse revelations and so on than perhaps it did at the time.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Do you genuinely believe it had anything to do with that.

In reply to The New NickB:


If in his new eternal life he was changed into a choir boy as well that really would be just deserts.

In reply to Denni:

From "Crimes of Loyalty - A History of the UDA":

"On one occasion during the second week of the strike Paisley arrived late for a full meeting of the UWC. [Glenn] Barr, from the chair, had made it clear that no latecomers would be admitted. Sammy Duddy was authorised to guard the door and was armed. He has already described his altercation with Paisley when the latter arrived and demanded admission. This was refused and Paisley was admitted only after his written request was slipped under the door. His berating of Duddy made little impression on the meeting but there was further acrimony when he occupied Barr's chair during an adjournment of the meeting. On his refusal to vacate the chair, it was lifted with him in it and moved down the table from the chairman's place. Duddy has added that 'a gun up his nose helped to shift him'..."

In reply to The New NickB:

I think it might have been a factor, yes... why so dismissive? His personal life was by all accounts irreproachable, if he was aware of the things that were going on in orphanages, schools and the rest that would have fed into his anger.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


The evidence doesn't really stack up to it, it doesn't seem to have been a constant part of his narrative.

In reply to Denni:

Got very mixed views about him. He certainly seems to have been omnipresent during my upbringing and well into adult life - or, at least his voice did

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


I thought I would see if I could find anything to substantiate your view, found nothing of any age, but thought this was interesting all things considered.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BINtiofht3E&feature=youtube_gdata_player

In reply to Denni:
So it only took 47 years for this to live up to its name after its 1967 FA:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/logbook/c.php?i=303632

In reply to Simon4:

Ian Paisley was linked to Loyalist paramilitaries and was involved in the founding of the Ulster Protestant Volunteers, the Third Force and Ulster resistance. He is also known to have brought in arms for some of these groups (I`ll try and find the book for references).

I also recall several loyalist paramilitary killers attributing hearing Paisley`s rhetoric as the catalyst for their, and others move to violence. Whilst he may not have pulled the trigger, in many ways paisley is directly responsible for the deaths of many. The man lived to fan the flames of sectarian hatred.

There is no doubt McGuinness and Adam`s have blood on their hands too, but there was never as intransient a political leader in N. Ireland as Paisley.

In reply to Nordie_matt:




Interesting comments from someone who was born in, what, 1986? Is it all from books or where you also told some of this?

In reply to Removed User:

Books have provided some of details regarding Paisley`s involvement in establishing paramilitary groupings. Personal experience of growing up in Belfast, having friends lose family members, having lost friends as a result of paramilitary and sectarian violence and having been on the receiving end of loyalist violence may have coloured my perspective.

Out of curiosity are you Northern Irish, or have you resided there?

In reply to The New NickB:


>
He didn't? Really?

In reply to Postmanpat:

On reflection he did, but he came very late to the party.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


It's irrelevant! His views on Catholicism and the Catholic Church were based on tribal hatred rather than any basis in fact. Despite the fact he may have lived his life without reproach, unlike a lot of other leading NI figures throughout that period, as a figure he espoused a doctrine of intolerance and hatred that caused numerous deaths and prolongation of the troubles in NI.

He may not have been personally involved in the death and terror in NI that other politicians were but that doesn't make his hands any less bloody as a result of what he inspired.

In reply to Nordie_matt:

I am Northern Irish, protestant and served in Northern Ireland in the army, so my perspective is a little different. I lost friends to the IRA and saw the impact of both Paisley and Adams and I can't say I was a supporter of either.

My point is that I lived through this era (I was born in 1964)whereas you really only lived through the aftermath when, in truth, Paisley would have had a reduced influence. So I suspect your perspective on Paisley is more of a learnt one yet your post implies something different.

In reply to The New NickB:

I'd heard that Adams et al (people linked to the IRA however loosely), only really started talking about peace once the IRA was too well infiltrated for it to continue to operate like it had.

Whatever the truth, I just found myself wondering why both sides hadn't started working towards peace sooner, when Paisley and Adams and Martin McGuinness appeared on TV getting on cordially with one another.

All that bloodshed and it turned out they liked one another.

In reply to Nordie_matt:

To be clear, myself and my immediate family had no time for Paisley's bigoted rhetoric but my wider family saw him as one of the only true advocates for the Protestant cause at the time.

In reply to Timmd:

There was certainly infiltration, but certain elements sympathetic to the loyalist cause are happy to big it up. To the point of suggesting that Martin McGuiness was a British agent, can you see why, as I said, making the peace put Adams and McGuiness in real danger.

In reply to The New NickB:

Yes I can.

In reply to Removed User:
Fair enough, I am originally from tollymore in Andy town, and whilst it is a traditionally republican stronghold, I had friends from all over Belfast of both creeds (the punk scene never being too fussed). My personal memories of Paisley mostly surround drumcree and the lower ormeau stand offs, when my family's Car was attacked by a baying mob after 1of paisleys speeches. Aside from that instance, there were numerous smaller city centre scuffles and chases.

And while what you say is true regarding my catching the end of the worst of the conflict, the remains of his influence were still about during my teenage years.

(Just for a bit of balance, my mum was working in the greenan lodge when the ra blew it up, and my da had his work robbed by both the Provos and the UVF - so both sides of the paramilitary divide have had a negative impacts on my immediate family life)


(Edited for poor spelling - bloody phones)

In reply to Nordie_matt:

Thanks. I think we can both agree that it was a sh*t time for many people.

I was stood on my family's farm yard when the Omagh bomb went off. As the farm is only 5 miles from town it could clearly be heard. My cousin who is a nurse drove in to help clear up the mess.

Hopefully the next generation can begin to let go of the history and move on.

In reply to Removed User:



Fully agree. On a side note I knew Micky Mckevitt`s nephew, a couple of years after Omagh he went on to join the PSNI. Whilst a small thing, it at least shows that even folk from extremist dissident families can see through the rhetoric and look to the future.

Here`s hoping for the future.

In reply to Denni:

Ian Paisley was addressing a gathering
" And the Day of Judgment will come - there will be a machine-gun for a machine-gun and a grenad for a grenad - there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth!"
Old woman in front row " but Mr Paisley- I don't have any teeth"
"MADAM - TEETH WILL BE PROVIDED!"

In reply to Denni:

I was in the secondhand book shop in Callander about 10 years ago. The owner told me an amusing story. He said Iain Paisley (plus several heavies) had visited his shop recently and bought all the political biographies, except John Major's. Paisley had picked Major's book up and said, "I sat behind that maun for 2 and hauf years and he never spoke to me once."

In reply to Nordie_matt and Minneconjou Sioux:


You guys rock, if only politicians and commentators had your sense.

Different sides of the fence yet united in hope.

In reply to The New NickB:

Just caught an illuminating (for me) piece on the radio.

Various folk close to the long road to relative peace in NI commented that paisley delivered a Yes from the hard line loyalist prods. Nobody else could and he choose to share power and bring some peace. The cost to him was substantial. outcast from the church he founded and from his party.

I suspect history will be kinder to him.

In reply to alasdair19:

Been interesting reading the obits and tributes to him - surprisingly warm from mcGuiness, more reserved from Adams. It's quite staggering to read the extent of his bigotry, how determined he was to resist the civil rights movement in the 60s, to keep jobs and housing for the Protestants. He may or may not have been directly involved with paramilitary activity, but he certainly played a major part in inciting the hatred that led to the anti-catholic pograms and fuelled the troubles for so long.

When he did finally come to realise that compromise was the only way forward, it did have a major impact on the peace process, and for that he should be applauded. But those comparing him to Adams and McGuiness should remember that they came to that point 10 years, and he spent much of those 10 years trying to undermine the Good Friday agreement.

P.s. By way of disclosure, I have no direct experience of the troubles. But my mum is a catholic from Donegal, my dad a English Protestant. Only recently become aware of the degree of bigotry they encountered from each other's mothers!

In reply to Removed User and Nordie Matt:

I hope you are right re current and future generations. A young guy, 26ish years old, occasionally does work for me. He's very smart, a PhD student, from Belfast and his dad was an RUC officer. This young guy has an black and white view of the troubles, as in the responsibilty lies 100% with Catholics and "The Repuplic." I introduced him to an an Irish engineer we were working with, when he heard the strong SW Ireland accent he refused to shake hands with him. Just one guy of course, and he is from a family with what you might expect to be a less than open minded view, but he would have been about 8 when the peace process was going through. Sad.

It is difficult for us 'mainlanders' to get our heads around how entrenched the divide was/is and how much a part of daily life it forms. My only direct experience of NI was working near Larne during July 2000. There was tons of bad shit going on that never made the news over here.