Life
1926- [Ian Richard Kyle Paisley]; b. 6 April, Killyea, nr. Sixmilecross,
Co. Armagh, yngr. son of a Tyrone Baptist preacher [formerly Church of
Ireland] and a Scottish Covenanting governness working in Lurgan; received
‘call’ at 16; established an independent Gospel Tabernacle;
became Baptist; licensed minister of East Belfast Mission, 1946; commenced
ministry at Ravenhill Rd. (“Martyrs Memorial” Church), Belfast
in protest against the ‘apostasy’ of Ulster’s largest Protestant
church, 1951 break-away move involving five elders of the Crossgar congregation;
became moderator of the Free ‘Presbyterian’ Church though never
properly part of a Presbyterian congregation; opposed all ecumenical parleys
with ‘Godless Romanism’ and ‘rescued’ one Maura Lyons
from Rome in the 1950s; attacked Donald Soper, Methodist minister of Ballymena,
for liberalism; went to Rome to oppose Vatican II (10-16 Oct. 1962); held
mass meetings to protest lowering of British flag on Belfast City Hall
to half-mast at death of Pope John XXIII; denounced Terence O’Neill
as traitor on meeting Sean Lemass, 25 Feb. 1965; led demonstration against
Capt. O’Neill, prime Min. of N.I., involving egg-throwing incident
outside Pres. Gen. Assembly, Belfast, and sentence to 3 months imprisonment;
treated NICRA as front for IRA, prominent in Loyalist counter-demonstrations
during Civil Rights marches, 1968-72; following of 7,000 by 1971; led
attack on Catholic marchers at Burntollet, Bridge, Jan. 1969; took 24
percent (to Prime-Minister Brian Faulkner’s 29) in Bannside constituency, 1969; won the
Bannside seat Stormont seat in N. Antrim, 1970; afterwards won the Westminster
seat for N. Antrim with 41 per cent, June 1970; established Democratic
Unionist Party with Desmond Boal, Oct. 1971; strike committee that brought
down the power-sharing Executive, 1974; elected to European Assembly seat,
1979; victim of internal rift when Rev. Mervyn Cotton estab. Reformed
Free Presbyterian Church, Randalstown, 1993; opened congregation of 12
at Barry Port, nr. Swansea, Aug. 1994; received an LLD from Bob Jones
Univ. ; writings incl. The
Fifty-Nine Revival (1958); Christian Foundations (1960); An
Exposition of the Epistle to the Romans (London 1968); The Massacre
of St. Bartholomew (1972); Paisley, the Man and His Message
(1976); America’s Debt to Ulster (1976), all of the foregoing,
London excepted, publ. Martyrs Memorial Publications, Belfast; also a
short study, Jonathan Edwards, Theologian of Revival (q.d.); he
features as ‘The Big Man’ in Tom Paulin’s Sophoclean play,
The Riot Act (1985); styled ‘the last romantic’ by Brendan
Kennelly. DIH WJM
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Works
The ‘Fifty-Nine’ Revival (Belfast: Publications Board/Free
Presbyterian Church of Ulster 1958).
Criticism
Ed Moloney & Andy Pollak, Paisley (Dublin Swords: Poolbeg 1986).
Steve Bruce, God Save Ulster, The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism (OUP 1986).
Tom Paulin, ‘Paisley’s Progress’, in Ireland and the English Crisis (1984) [q.pp.].
Clifford Smyth, Ian Paisley, the Voice of Ulster (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press 1987), 206pp.
Maurice Goldring, ‘Paisley - Le Pen’, in Barbara Hayley & Christopher Murray, eds., Ireland and France, A Bountiful Friendship, Essays in Honour of Patrick Rafroidi (Colin Smythe 1992), pp.163-172.
Dennis Cooke [princ. Edgehill Theol. College, Belfast], Persecuting Zeal: A Portrait of Ian Paisley (Dingle: Brandon 1996), 224pp.
Dervla Murphy, A Place Apart [Record of Northern Ireland] (London: Routledge 1978), pp.142-49 [a witness to Paisley's preaching of violence].
Seamus Deane, Heroic Styles: The Tradition of an Idea [Field
Day Pamphlet, No. 4] (Derry: Field Day 1984), p.15.
Austen Morgan, review of Ed Molony & Andrew Pollack, Paisley (Poolbeg), and Steve Bruce, God Save Ulster: The Religion and Politics of Paisleyism (Clarendon), in Books Ireland, May 1987, p.97.
Steve Bruce, The Edge of the Union, The Ulster Loyalist Political Vision (OUP 1994).
Stephen Douds, ‘Wee Free King’, in Fortnight Review, May 1996, pp.26-17.
Nicholas Murray, review of Tom Paulin, ‘Paisley’s Progress’, Writing to the Moment: Selected Critical Essays 1980-1996 (Faber 1996), in Times Literary Supplement, 29 Nov. 1996, p.26.
Shirley Kelly interviews Dennis Cooke, author of Persecuting Zeal (Dingle: Brandon 1996), 224pp., in Books Ireland Dec. 1996.
Maurice Hayes writes in Minority Report (1995), in Times Literary Supplement (9 Feb. 1996), pp.4-5.
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Notes
Against ecumenicism: ‘It is quite evident that the Ecumenists,
both political and ecclesiaastical, are selling us. Every Ulster Protestant
must unflinchingly reist these leaders and let it be known in no uncertain
manner that they will not sit idly by as these modern Lundies pursue their
policy of treachery. Ulster expects every Protestant ... to do his duty.'
(Quoted in Ed Molony and Andy Pollock, Paisley, Poolbeg 1986, p.121.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, quotes sermons &c., ‘Gospel
Power’, ‘What Think Ye of Christ’; ‘An Exposition
of the Epistle to the Romans’; ‘The Three Hebrew Children’;
BIOG 378-79.
Hugh McClean, sentenced for murder of Peter Ward in 1966, said, ‘I am terribly sorry I ever heard of that man Paisley or decided to follow him’, and further: ‘I was asked did I agree with Paisley and was I prepared to follow him. I said that I was.’ (Cited in review of Dennis Cooke, Persecuting Zeal, in Books Ireland, March 1997, p.51.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)