Paisley gone to his eternal reward

[balladmaker]

If Ian Paisley is not in hell at this moment, then there is no such thing as hell.  The death, destruction and turmoil that he played a big part in fueling over the past 40+ years cannot be wiped away by his near death epiphany of recent times.

[mrdeeds]

What about poor Jim Branning. He deserves his own thread.

[johnneycool]

What about poor Jim Branning. He deserves his own thread.

Never knew that, now he will be a loss to the world, sad news alright.

[theskull1]

Tony Blair, GW Bush, Paisley, Sean Brady will all get to heaven. All devout men so why wouldn't they? Certainly that would be the opinion of people who think they are great fellas. I shouldn't matter to God what negative impact they had on the world should it?

[OakleafCounty]

He does have blood on his hands in an indirect way. No doubt about it. But some people are going on here as if he was Hitler.

When Dalorous Price died I think people on here were actually paying tribute to her and she was directly involved in an explosion that injured 200 people as well as alledgey murders.

[Rossfan]

Pity he didn't go 50 years ago.
But then I suppose some other bigoted fundamentalist Protestant with a 17th Century mindset would have turned up to keep the Unionists and Unionism firmly rooted in bigotry, intolerance and oppression.

[johnneycool]

He does have blood on his hands in an indirect way. No doubt about it. But some people are going on here as if he was Hitler.

When Dalorous Price died I think people on here were actually paying tribute to her and she was directly involved in an explosion that injured 200 people as well as alledgey murders.

How many did Hitler actually pull the trigger on?

[Mayo4Sam]

From Martin McG

Very sad to learn that Ian Paisley has died.My deepest sympathy to his wife Eileen & family.Once political opponents - I have lost a friend.

[seafoid]

He does have blood on his hands in an indirect way. No doubt about it. But some people are going on here as if he was Hitler.

When Dalorous Price died I think people on here were actually paying tribute to her and she was directly involved in an explosion that injured 200 people as well as alledgey murders.

Sunningdale for slow learners. The outlines for what happened after 94 were already known 20 years previously.
No no no was the mantra that kept a lid on it until reality intervened. And he didn't want in the 70s what he eventually accepted in the 90s.
   

[johnneycool]

Just to get the timelines right, Paisley was ranting and raving about Catholics before and during the civil rights demonstrations before the IRA were remotely active, so he very much part of the initial problem and not a reaction to IRA activities.

[Oraisteach]

No feigned sadness here.  He was the essence of evil in my childhood, a firebrand whose MO was to foment fierce anti-Catholic hatred and to drive an immovable wedge between two working class communities who probably had way more in common than not.  Not with a bang but a whimper.

[PAULD123]

Thatcher and now Paisley gone. The political perpetrators of so much unforgivable suffering on so many people have thankfully breathed their last.

But in all honestly it was nefariousness as politicians that caused the pain, and really they started their rot when they died politically. Thatcher was dead that day she stumbled from No.10 having been stabbed in the back by her own party, and likewise Paisley was dead from when he was ousted by Robinson in 2008.

Hopefully the revisionist history painting them in saintly perception will one day be revised again to deprecate them for their vile undertakings

[johnneycool]

Thatcher and now Paisley gone. The political perpetrators of so much unforgivable suffering on so many people have thankfully breathed their last.

But in all honestly it was nefariousness as politicians that caused the pain, and really they started their rot when they died politically. Thatcher was dead that day she stumbled from No.10 having been stabbed in the back by her own party, and likewise Paisley was dead from when he was ousted by Robinson in 2008.

Hopefully the revisionist history painting them in saintly perception will one day be revised again to deprecate them for their vile undertakings

Thatcher didn't get the saintly perception that the media and her darlings in London wanted to give her as those put out of work and onto the perpetual dole queues in the North of England, Wales and Scotland were pretty vocal in ensuring her legacy there was also remembered.

Will the political commentators here have the same set of balls?

[rosnarun]

Can we not show a bit of class and let him be Mourned by those that want to .
there are plenty of times to pass judgement but not the day on which he passed on

[seafoid]

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/12/ian-paisley-northern-ireland-sinn-fein

Ian Paisley: Northern Ireland's 'no' man who said 'yes'

There were many who doubted Paisley's attempt to share power with Sinn Fein after decades of dissent would work, but it did

   
theguardian.com, Friday 12 September 2014 14.13 BST   

I grew up with Ian Paisley. His was a name I heard as a child playing in the streets of west Belfast. I wasn't particularly politically conscious and Paisley's fame at that time was primarily around his anti-Catholic rhetoric.
Although a religious minister, Paisley – like other firebrand protestant clergy before him – also involved himself in unionist politics. At a time of increasing unemployment the aim of his Ulster Protestant Association was "to keep Protestant and loyal workers in employment in times of depression, in preference to their Catholic fellow workers". But it was the Divis Street riots in 1964, when I was 15, that brought him to real prominence.
There was a British general election and Sinn Féin, which was banned, was standing candidates as independent republicans. It had opened an office in Divis Street, which I passed each day on my way to and from school. An Irish tricolour was placed in the window. Paisley threatened that if it wasn't taken down he would march from City Hall and remove it. The unionist candidate in the election, Jim Kilfedder, also demanded its removal and the unionist minister for home affairs, mindful that it was election time and not wanting to alienate loyalist voters, duly ordered the Royal Ulster Constabulary to use force to take it.

Fifty RUC men used pickaxes to smash their way into the office and seized the flag. The next day another tricolour took its place and the RUC returned to smash the window and take this too. Two days of rioting followed. Two weeks later a victorious Kilfedder used his first public remarks as the new MP for west Belfast to thank Paisley, without whose help "it could not have been done".

The Divis Street event set the template for much of Paisley's subsequent political career. It also had the additional effect of encouraging me to become politically curious and then active. I went off and got a copy of the notorious Special Powers Act. I read it and other material and began to learn about the causes of discrimination and sectarianism. I started folding election leaflets for the republicans.

In the late 1960s, the "Paisleyites", as they were generally called, organised counter demonstrations as a way of disrupting civil rights marches. Their actions increased tension. When the pogroms occurred in Belfast in 1969, the Paisleyites were in the vanguard of the attacks on Catholic areas. And from that point on the political situation became increasingly militarised. During the 1970s, 80s, 90s and into the new century, Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party, which he established in 1970, opposed every effort at reform or to find an agreement. He worked closely with loyalist paramilitary organisations to bring down the power-sharing executive in 1974 and established his own paramilitary organisations as a means of advancing his political goals, including the Third Force and Ulster Resistance.

He was the famous "no" man of northern politics who thundered out "Never, never, never" as he rejected the Anglo-Irish Agreement at a rally in front of Belfast City Hall in 1985. These images will now be replayed in the days that follow. But they will be juxtaposed with photographs and film of a laughing, smiling Paisley sitting next to an equally laughing and smiling Martin McGuinness, Sinn Féin's deputy first minister of Northern Ireland.

When Paisley finally led his party delegation into a meeting with me and a Sinn Féin delegation in March 2007, there were many who doubted it would work. The press conference image of Paisley and I sitting side by side and announcing the re-establishment of the political institutions flabbergasted those who had lived through decades of conflict.

But it worked. Paisley and McGuinness got on famously. Paisley was still a unionist, McGuinness still a republican. It is to his credit and McGuinness's great patience that they created a space where each could find common cause with the other.

Paisley embraced the new dispensation. At his first meeting with McGuinness he declared: "We don't need Englishmen to rule us. We can do that ourselves."

He travelled to Dublin. He visited the site of the Battle of the Boyne at the invitation of the Irish government. He was at all times respectful and courteous in our meetings and good humoured.

His wife, Eileen, was also a benign and positive influence. Paisley will be remembered for the bad days but after decades of dissent, he chose to build a new future for the people of the north and of the island based on respect and dialogue. He should be remembered for that as well.

On my behalf and on behalf of Sinn Féin I want to extend our sincere condolences to Eileen, Paisley's children Rhonda, Sharon, Cherith, Kyle and Ian, his grandchildren, family, friends and church and party colleagues.