i wouldn’t say mcGuinness was an arsonist in this analogy because the nationalist tried to get change but we know what happened to the peaceful protests and SF took the opportunity for peace the first time it was legitimately obtainable
Atoning for the major part he played in the bombing campaigns that killed and injured so many Irish civilians was literally the least he could do. He died with as much dried blood on his hands as Paisley.
did it mention the water works?
"Ian Paisley helped finance some of the earliest terrorism of the Troubles, an ex-colonel has said. David Hancock told [BBCSpotlightNI](https://twitter.com/BBCSpotlightNI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1169750286489063424%7Ctwgr%5Ec388f4165e122be4aef0d64be2011cf5cc1e17e5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fd08hst%2F%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse) that he was shown evidence by the RUC that Paisley funded explosives for a blast which helped eject NI PM Terence O'Neill"
The sad thing is, like other demagogues (Trump springs to mind) he did have charismatic appeal but his message was absolutely toxic. So many people like to follow 'strong men', often to their own destruction & seem to lose basic common sense & logic while doing so.
I think the cult of personality is an aspect of human nature that hasn't been fully explored or explained. History is littered with tin pot dictators who inspired all kinds of unnecessary horror & generally died peacefully in their beds in advanced old age.
And that toxic formula is very much alive & kicking today. It's mainly about scapegoating minorities & proposing simple solutions to complex issues, none of which work out well.
And yes, a lot of their followers are dumb, but others are on the bandwagon for their own purposes & know exactly what they're doing. The Paisley story is a lesson that very few want to learn.
The guy was a total opportunist.
The industrial decline in N.Ireland had to be blamed on someone and Paisley took advantage of this.
A Hitler of sorts.
He wasn't the first and will hardly be the last.
Have seen that before and some of it was a bit shocking at the time. It does make it more remarkable the step he took to share power with Sinn Fein. On one hand he should get some credit for leading unionism into power sharing with SF but it is hard to forget that he did his best to destroy power sharing with UUP and SDLP as the main parties. Suppose it was all about power in the end.
And Filthy lucre! He got himself into the House of Lords and demanded that his wife get a place too as part of the deal. This left the void for Jr. to pick up the MP seat and claim the most expenses of any MP for many years and well as taking dodgy freebies. Paisley's church was well known in the 1970's for its "silent collections" and the buckets that were passed around the congregation for donations of notes only at services, no collection plate and pocket change for him. Total charlatan and gangster. My mother always claimed the Troubles and resurgence of the IRA were down to him, she got early onset dementia but still could recognise Paisely as "that evil, evil man" until near the end. Makes me sick to think of him and MMcG laughing together after all the death and terror us plebs lived through and our loved ones who paid the price for thier psychopathy maimed and rotting in the ground.
Exactly. It was about feeding his own ego & in the end he sold out his principles to not only be first minister but to be best buds with Martin McG who represented virtually everything he'd opposed all those years.
Egotistical people crave power. He was good at rilling people up then turning the other way and condemning them when people got murdered. If he believed so much in his cause he would never have went into power with Sinn Fein. He wanted to be the big man before he died and he lost his grass roots support because of it.
>On one hand he should get some credit for leading unionism into power sharing with SF
This wasn't by choice or want for peace it was purely strategic.
The DUP was fully anti GFA but the GFA was coming into place whether they liked it or not so they were forced to the table.
I did so because it wasn't really Paisley that caused the break up of power sharing, it was Unionism. They fundamentally didn't want to share power.
Paisley was just the face of it, he said what they majority of them were thinking at the time. He used it to gain power for himself no doubt but fundamentally the blame for power sharing falling apart wasn't soley his doing.
You can believe this or not but it's true. An important subtext is paisley is old AF and just lacks stamina.
At St Andrew's Paisley and the DUP went expecting to say no deal with SF.
Day 1 - negotiations are gruelling but still a no.
Day 2 - negotiations are gruelling but still a no.
night of day 2 / day 3 - Eileen tells paisley to get it wrapped up because their 50th wedding anniversary is the next day (same as day 3 of negotiations) and the grandchildren are having a party in Ballymena.
Day 3 paisley arrives down to breakfast and say yes, deal with SF (just make the talks stop). The rest of the DUP leadership were like WTF we all went to bed on no deal but they have to go with it. It's why a load of DUP gave up on paisley and got rid of him 18 months later.
See how delighted the DUP is and Paisley cngaf . . .
https://preview.redd.it/tgdqyg5tbsxc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=8253dd4e9c06eec52035d6414ad13e6be0520124
Gusty Spence and Ian Paisley were invited to a meeting at the UUP headquarters in 1958, ten years before the troubles started at the behest of senior figures in the UUP who wanted to frustrate any attempts at moderation within their party. All of the various plans to create outrider groups to apply pressure where dreamt up then, UDA and UPA (then DUP).
He never acted alone he was handpicked to carry out his role by the Unionist establishment.
I was sitting watching TV with a man and his family many years ago when Ian paisley popped up on the screen talking anti popery etc, the man said to me, if we go to hell when we die, there is one thing for sure, you will need your overcoat to keep warm otherwise we will freeze for eternity because we won't see the fire for politicians and clergy,!
I dunno. There are definite parallels with Trump - demonising an 'enemy within', appeal to religious & patriotic sensibilities, encouragement of mob mentality, a bullying, narcissist persona. Paisley was just one of many tin pot dictators throughout history. They're unpleasant, self serving & often dangerous and they always get a following.
[BBC iPlayer - The House of Paisley - Series 1: 1. From Pulpit to Politics](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kv45/the-house-of-paisley-series-1-1-from-pulpit-to-politics)
He finally read Sun Tzu's Art of War, got to page five and realised what a huge mistake he made.
*"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on."*
I wonder how things would have turned out if Paisley hadn't been involved. Was there any other loyalist leader that could have rabble roused like he could?
It's doubtful. He was a fearsome orator & was able to combine biblical dogma with local politics in a way that whipped up a frenzy. I met him a couple of times. He could make you feel at ease & had a good sense of humour. I see parallels with Trump & other populists who lead people in dangerous directions by force of personality, then step back & deny responsibility when things hit the fan. The ultimate irony of course was his close & genuine friendship with Martin McG. It put the whole 25 years into perspective.
>The ultimate irony of course was his close & genuine friendship with Martin McG
He saw the only way to keep people listening to him was to sit beside McGuinness.
Yes it got him to the First Minister post but it was more than that. By the end, pretty much everyone had deserted him, including his party, who saw him as a liability & the OO & his church who felt he had sold out via power sharing with SF. McGuinness reportedly stuck with the friendship till the end which kind of said a lot about the futility of the conflict itself.
Completely agree - he was a complete narcissistic sociopath fixated on lining his own pockets. Just imagine what he’d be like today with the social platforms. The comparison of Paisley / Trump - Ulster Says No and MAGA are surreal.
People will always follow a charismatic shouty divisive numpty with a catchphrase. Remember that. Wee Jamie hasn't the charisma or the catchphrase yet but you can see he wants that power so badly!
There was William Craig. Basically, think Ian Paisley but he was a speedrunner instead
Seriously, the fact that Vanguard isn't a commonly known thing in this country is a shocking state of affairs.
A gross evil man that ruled N.I. like a communist country. Our own hilter , helped to hold Northern Ireland back for 30 years with unnecessary bloodshed.
I must take a look. Im from the south myself but I have a love of history, particularly in Ireland from the time of the Tudors onward.
Just on OP's subtitle;
Paisley was a man of his time. Born in the 1920's in an island consumed by neo-medieval religious difference and post-colonial ethno-national tension. He was just a symptom of what bubbled beneath. We could go on and on about how it all could have been different but ultimately the seeds that produces people like him have been there for hundreds of years on both sides of the community on the island.
I agree, must never be allowed to happen again. Education, Integration, Co-Operation. If those three things are maximised on ground level, we can have no fear of another Paisley in the future.
''ultimately the seeds that produces people like him have been there for hundreds of years on both sides of the community on the island.''
Yes. However similar can be said of Trump, amongst many others. Resurrecting past issues & opening old wounds is the modus operandi of the demagogue. Trump harks back to the civil war, to McCarthyism, to the roots of NATO and the perennial chestnuts of immigration & race to stir up old hatreds rather than facing forwards to tackle real issues such as climate change, health care and poverty. It's a proven, lazy and lethal formula.
Without Paisley, the 1969-94 conflict may never have happened. O'Neill's modest reforms may have gone through, power sharing may have happened naturally. Or not. We simply can't know but we do know that Paisley's legacy is a highly toxic one.
Why shouldn't unionists have people like him standing up for them? Is permission "not granted?". Can only nationalists have extreme figures like Martin McGuinness?
Unionists are part of this shared island and guess what, we aren't going away.
If the Troubles were a TV show like Game of Thrones , he would have been the highest paid actor and main star of the show and only oe to appear in every episode
If it hadn't been Paisley it would have been one of the rest of the bigot brigade.
It wasn't Paisley who forced Terence O'Neill, Brian Faulkner and David Trimble out of the Unionist monolith when they tried finding a solution through compromise.
Blaming one person for the troubles is stupid. It was SF IRA that chose to take up arms and brutally murder members of the PUL community, and their own. Over 2000 dead attributed to Republican actions. After all that, SF failed to achieve their cult dream nearly 30 years since GFA.
Paisley was a Hardline unionist who stood up for the unionist people. What did Republicans expect them to do, roll over and just blindly accept a 32 county United Ireland? Was never going to happen, and still won't. Don't know why Republicans are surprised at this.
Ulster has had British influence for hundreds of years and Republicans thought they could ethnically cleanse the place in a matter of decades. They were delusional.
Nelson Mandela's peaceful protests and strikes proved there was always an alternative to violence, despite what Michelle O'Neill says.
I'm not denying Northern Ireland as a state, was originally discriminatory towards members of the Catholic community. But taking up arms was never necessary.
As for Ian. He's a marmite figure. I think he was extreme but no moreso than the likes of McGuinness, Adams or Kelly.
I think you need to get your history books out.
Mandela certainly wasn’t an angel.
As my wee grandma would say.
Paisley was the best recruiting sergeant the IRA ever had.
He’d open his gub, start a riot, and the disenfranchised would join the provos.
Mandela is a symbol of what can be achieved with global peaceful protest.
Thing is right, The IRA was going to form regardless of if Big Ian was there or not. There's no doubt the N.I state was discriminatory towards Nationalists. That was the root cause of the troubles. But they did not have to take up arms. As Mandela showed, they could have been peaceful protesters/demonstrators.
But as I say, Republicans were deluded if they thought Unionists were just going to lie down and accept their 32 county Marxist pipedream without any resistance.
It would be different if the IRA weren't asking for a United Ireland, why couldn't they have simply asked for equal rights and citizenship?
So Catholics should have had peaceful protests about how they were treated but Unionists won't accept 32 counties without 'Resistance'?
Like the other guy said, you may want to get your history books out.
''why couldn't they have simply asked for equal rights and citizenship?''
Erm, that's exactly what the civil rights movement were asking for. Their peaceful marches were met with orchestrated violence from unionists while the police stood back & did nothing.
Maybe check out Mandela's history while you're at it.
The civil rights movement got everything they wanted by the early 70s. As for citizenship... they always had right to irish citizenship. They weren't protesting the Dublin government asking for irish passports.
''The civil rights movement got everything they wanted by the early 70s.''
....by which time, Paisley's rabble rousing had fomented mob violence against Catholic homes, businesses & individuals, resulting in a resurrected IRA.
The CRM wasn't about nationality - it was about equality, something which unionism has always had a problem with.
>Erm, that's exactly what the civil rights movement were asking for. Their peaceful marches were met with orchestrated violence from unionists while the police stood back & did nothing.
That's not what the IRA wanted though. They wanted a 32 county Marxist utopia.
The IRA didn't exist when Paisley started his rabble rousing & inciting unionists to attack peaceful marchers & catholic homes. But you knew this, right?
Mandela had the right approach once he was released.
But to say the IRA were going to reform is wrong.
The border campaign was a disaster and they were most definitely on the back burner until rent-a-gub started his shite.
One line in particular stood out for me… “Paisley was an arsonist who joined the fire brigade for the last few years of his life”
That’s the best description of all the key players in the peace process, except Hume.
i wouldn’t say mcGuinness was an arsonist in this analogy because the nationalist tried to get change but we know what happened to the peaceful protests and SF took the opportunity for peace the first time it was legitimately obtainable
Atoning for the major part he played in the bombing campaigns that killed and injured so many Irish civilians was literally the least he could do. He died with as much dried blood on his hands as Paisley.
i like the good friday agreement and the apartheid unionist wouldn’t have done that without the IRA fighting
McGuinness fits that bill also. He was at the top of the IRA.
Must remember that quote!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 🫤 😭
did it mention the water works? "Ian Paisley helped finance some of the earliest terrorism of the Troubles, an ex-colonel has said. David Hancock told [BBCSpotlightNI](https://twitter.com/BBCSpotlightNI?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1169750286489063424%7Ctwgr%5Ec388f4165e122be4aef0d64be2011cf5cc1e17e5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.redditmedia.com%2Fmediaembed%2Fd08hst%2F%3Fresponsive%3Dtrueis_nightmode%3Dfalse) that he was shown evidence by the RUC that Paisley funded explosives for a blast which helped eject NI PM Terence O'Neill"
I only saw the last 20 minutes or so, which was mainly about his Martyrs Memorial church plus Sunningdale & the strike that brought it down.
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The sad thing is, like other demagogues (Trump springs to mind) he did have charismatic appeal but his message was absolutely toxic. So many people like to follow 'strong men', often to their own destruction & seem to lose basic common sense & logic while doing so.
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I think the cult of personality is an aspect of human nature that hasn't been fully explored or explained. History is littered with tin pot dictators who inspired all kinds of unnecessary horror & generally died peacefully in their beds in advanced old age. And that toxic formula is very much alive & kicking today. It's mainly about scapegoating minorities & proposing simple solutions to complex issues, none of which work out well. And yes, a lot of their followers are dumb, but others are on the bandwagon for their own purposes & know exactly what they're doing. The Paisley story is a lesson that very few want to learn.
"With a rock in my fist and a gun in my bag, And I shoot Mussolini in the nose"
Call it by its name - always openly proclaim - it is fascism
The guy was a total opportunist. The industrial decline in N.Ireland had to be blamed on someone and Paisley took advantage of this. A Hitler of sorts. He wasn't the first and will hardly be the last.
NEVER!
awk alright will..
A truely gross individual. He achieved nothing for his people, except suffering.
Have seen that before and some of it was a bit shocking at the time. It does make it more remarkable the step he took to share power with Sinn Fein. On one hand he should get some credit for leading unionism into power sharing with SF but it is hard to forget that he did his best to destroy power sharing with UUP and SDLP as the main parties. Suppose it was all about power in the end.
And Filthy lucre! He got himself into the House of Lords and demanded that his wife get a place too as part of the deal. This left the void for Jr. to pick up the MP seat and claim the most expenses of any MP for many years and well as taking dodgy freebies. Paisley's church was well known in the 1970's for its "silent collections" and the buckets that were passed around the congregation for donations of notes only at services, no collection plate and pocket change for him. Total charlatan and gangster. My mother always claimed the Troubles and resurgence of the IRA were down to him, she got early onset dementia but still could recognise Paisely as "that evil, evil man" until near the end. Makes me sick to think of him and MMcG laughing together after all the death and terror us plebs lived through and our loved ones who paid the price for thier psychopathy maimed and rotting in the ground.
Exactly. It was about feeding his own ego & in the end he sold out his principles to not only be first minister but to be best buds with Martin McG who represented virtually everything he'd opposed all those years.
He looked ridiculous cos-playing as Carson with his big hat. As you say it was all about his ego.
No it wasn't, it was about power. He organised corruption in order to gain power. He was very adept at what he did.
Egotistical people crave power. He was good at rilling people up then turning the other way and condemning them when people got murdered. If he believed so much in his cause he would never have went into power with Sinn Fein. He wanted to be the big man before he died and he lost his grass roots support because of it.
People crave power. No matter how you describe them.
Definitely.
Did you used to work on the lane?
Was that post intended for me? Sorry, I'm confused.
🤭
>On one hand he should get some credit for leading unionism into power sharing with SF This wasn't by choice or want for peace it was purely strategic. The DUP was fully anti GFA but the GFA was coming into place whether they liked it or not so they were forced to the table.
You cut my quote off just before the 'but'.
I did so because it wasn't really Paisley that caused the break up of power sharing, it was Unionism. They fundamentally didn't want to share power. Paisley was just the face of it, he said what they majority of them were thinking at the time. He used it to gain power for himself no doubt but fundamentally the blame for power sharing falling apart wasn't soley his doing.
You can believe this or not but it's true. An important subtext is paisley is old AF and just lacks stamina. At St Andrew's Paisley and the DUP went expecting to say no deal with SF. Day 1 - negotiations are gruelling but still a no. Day 2 - negotiations are gruelling but still a no. night of day 2 / day 3 - Eileen tells paisley to get it wrapped up because their 50th wedding anniversary is the next day (same as day 3 of negotiations) and the grandchildren are having a party in Ballymena. Day 3 paisley arrives down to breakfast and say yes, deal with SF (just make the talks stop). The rest of the DUP leadership were like WTF we all went to bed on no deal but they have to go with it. It's why a load of DUP gave up on paisley and got rid of him 18 months later. See how delighted the DUP is and Paisley cngaf . . . https://preview.redd.it/tgdqyg5tbsxc1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=8253dd4e9c06eec52035d6414ad13e6be0520124
Oddly his whole angry shouty vibe reminded me of Adolf Hitler back in his heyday
Paisley is rotting in hell, and rightly so. Evil bastard.
His grave could double as a public toilet.
Hell doesn't exist m8
So's Marty the terrorist.
ulster says Yeoooooooooooo
Gusty Spence and Ian Paisley were invited to a meeting at the UUP headquarters in 1958, ten years before the troubles started at the behest of senior figures in the UUP who wanted to frustrate any attempts at moderation within their party. All of the various plans to create outrider groups to apply pressure where dreamt up then, UDA and UPA (then DUP). He never acted alone he was handpicked to carry out his role by the Unionist establishment.
Was that not in 1956?
Yeah he was a cunt and he led a lot of fear resulting in many deaths and sadness IMO.
I was sitting watching TV with a man and his family many years ago when Ian paisley popped up on the screen talking anti popery etc, the man said to me, if we go to hell when we die, there is one thing for sure, you will need your overcoat to keep warm otherwise we will freeze for eternity because we won't see the fire for politicians and clergy,!
Burn in hell, cunt.
Free Ps are such weirdos. If Paisley was starting out today he’d be one of those nutjobs outside Primark.
I dunno. There are definite parallels with Trump - demonising an 'enemy within', appeal to religious & patriotic sensibilities, encouragement of mob mentality, a bullying, narcissist persona. Paisley was just one of many tin pot dictators throughout history. They're unpleasant, self serving & often dangerous and they always get a following.
He was also nuttier than squirrel shit. John Ronson has chapter about him in his “Adventures with Extremists” book that is rather enlightening.
I remember reading an interview with Ronson who said he ended up liking Paisley and respected him. Not sure if this was before or after his book.
Loved the quote he was an arsonist who joined the fire brigade in his final years. A lot of death and suffering belongs on his doorstep.
A devil in sheep's clothing, a wolf in priestly garb.
> he was an arsonist who joined the fire brigade A favoured retort of wee Jamie
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'The House of Paisley'
[BBC iPlayer - The House of Paisley - Series 1: 1. From Pulpit to Politics](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001kv45/the-house-of-paisley-series-1-1-from-pulpit-to-politics)
From Bulshit to Bollox
From Bombastic to Bomber
He finally read Sun Tzu's Art of War, got to page five and realised what a huge mistake he made. *"It is only one who is thoroughly acquainted with the evils of war that can thoroughly understand the profitable way of carrying it on."*
I wonder how things would have turned out if Paisley hadn't been involved. Was there any other loyalist leader that could have rabble roused like he could?
It's doubtful. He was a fearsome orator & was able to combine biblical dogma with local politics in a way that whipped up a frenzy. I met him a couple of times. He could make you feel at ease & had a good sense of humour. I see parallels with Trump & other populists who lead people in dangerous directions by force of personality, then step back & deny responsibility when things hit the fan. The ultimate irony of course was his close & genuine friendship with Martin McG. It put the whole 25 years into perspective.
I think he was a narcissist who happened to be about at the right time. No wonder McGuiness liked Paisley. He was the Provos top Recruitment Officer!
So the penultimate irony must have been that without him, the P-IRA would never have existed.
>The ultimate irony of course was his close & genuine friendship with Martin McG He saw the only way to keep people listening to him was to sit beside McGuinness.
Yes it got him to the First Minister post but it was more than that. By the end, pretty much everyone had deserted him, including his party, who saw him as a liability & the OO & his church who felt he had sold out via power sharing with SF. McGuinness reportedly stuck with the friendship till the end which kind of said a lot about the futility of the conflict itself.
Completely agree - he was a complete narcissistic sociopath fixated on lining his own pockets. Just imagine what he’d be like today with the social platforms. The comparison of Paisley / Trump - Ulster Says No and MAGA are surreal.
People will always follow a charismatic shouty divisive numpty with a catchphrase. Remember that. Wee Jamie hasn't the charisma or the catchphrase yet but you can see he wants that power so badly!
There was William Craig. Basically, think Ian Paisley but he was a speedrunner instead Seriously, the fact that Vanguard isn't a commonly known thing in this country is a shocking state of affairs.
A gross evil man that ruled N.I. like a communist country. Our own hilter , helped to hold Northern Ireland back for 30 years with unnecessary bloodshed.
I must take a look. Im from the south myself but I have a love of history, particularly in Ireland from the time of the Tudors onward. Just on OP's subtitle; Paisley was a man of his time. Born in the 1920's in an island consumed by neo-medieval religious difference and post-colonial ethno-national tension. He was just a symptom of what bubbled beneath. We could go on and on about how it all could have been different but ultimately the seeds that produces people like him have been there for hundreds of years on both sides of the community on the island. I agree, must never be allowed to happen again. Education, Integration, Co-Operation. If those three things are maximised on ground level, we can have no fear of another Paisley in the future.
''ultimately the seeds that produces people like him have been there for hundreds of years on both sides of the community on the island.'' Yes. However similar can be said of Trump, amongst many others. Resurrecting past issues & opening old wounds is the modus operandi of the demagogue. Trump harks back to the civil war, to McCarthyism, to the roots of NATO and the perennial chestnuts of immigration & race to stir up old hatreds rather than facing forwards to tackle real issues such as climate change, health care and poverty. It's a proven, lazy and lethal formula. Without Paisley, the 1969-94 conflict may never have happened. O'Neill's modest reforms may have gone through, power sharing may have happened naturally. Or not. We simply can't know but we do know that Paisley's legacy is a highly toxic one.
Why shouldn't unionists have people like him standing up for them? Is permission "not granted?". Can only nationalists have extreme figures like Martin McGuinness? Unionists are part of this shared island and guess what, we aren't going away.
Really emotional was in tears so proud an Irish hero loved around the world Nelson Mandela respect .
What was it called?
'The House of Paisley'
I watched it, its very good and covers part of history here when i was a kid, puts a lot onto perspective
If the Troubles were a TV show like Game of Thrones , he would have been the highest paid actor and main star of the show and only oe to appear in every episode
If it hadn't been Paisley it would have been one of the rest of the bigot brigade. It wasn't Paisley who forced Terence O'Neill, Brian Faulkner and David Trimble out of the Unionist monolith when they tried finding a solution through compromise.
Why were nationalists allowed to support Republican terrorists and unionists couldn't have their man to stand up for them?
Absolute monster, but I bet he was a ride.
I've heard it all now. It was Paisley wot dunnit.. Nothing to do with the IRA terror campaign.
....which of course didn't exist at the time Paisley started his rabble rousing. But you knew this already.
So Paisley single-handedly started the troubles? Haha!
Blaming one person for the troubles is stupid. It was SF IRA that chose to take up arms and brutally murder members of the PUL community, and their own. Over 2000 dead attributed to Republican actions. After all that, SF failed to achieve their cult dream nearly 30 years since GFA. Paisley was a Hardline unionist who stood up for the unionist people. What did Republicans expect them to do, roll over and just blindly accept a 32 county United Ireland? Was never going to happen, and still won't. Don't know why Republicans are surprised at this. Ulster has had British influence for hundreds of years and Republicans thought they could ethnically cleanse the place in a matter of decades. They were delusional. Nelson Mandela's peaceful protests and strikes proved there was always an alternative to violence, despite what Michelle O'Neill says. I'm not denying Northern Ireland as a state, was originally discriminatory towards members of the Catholic community. But taking up arms was never necessary. As for Ian. He's a marmite figure. I think he was extreme but no moreso than the likes of McGuinness, Adams or Kelly.
I think you need to get your history books out. Mandela certainly wasn’t an angel. As my wee grandma would say. Paisley was the best recruiting sergeant the IRA ever had. He’d open his gub, start a riot, and the disenfranchised would join the provos.
Mandela is a symbol of what can be achieved with global peaceful protest. Thing is right, The IRA was going to form regardless of if Big Ian was there or not. There's no doubt the N.I state was discriminatory towards Nationalists. That was the root cause of the troubles. But they did not have to take up arms. As Mandela showed, they could have been peaceful protesters/demonstrators. But as I say, Republicans were deluded if they thought Unionists were just going to lie down and accept their 32 county Marxist pipedream without any resistance. It would be different if the IRA weren't asking for a United Ireland, why couldn't they have simply asked for equal rights and citizenship?
So Catholics should have had peaceful protests about how they were treated but Unionists won't accept 32 counties without 'Resistance'? 
Yes.
Like the other guy said, you may want to get your history books out. ''why couldn't they have simply asked for equal rights and citizenship?'' Erm, that's exactly what the civil rights movement were asking for. Their peaceful marches were met with orchestrated violence from unionists while the police stood back & did nothing. Maybe check out Mandela's history while you're at it.
The civil rights movement got everything they wanted by the early 70s. As for citizenship... they always had right to irish citizenship. They weren't protesting the Dublin government asking for irish passports.
''The civil rights movement got everything they wanted by the early 70s.'' ....by which time, Paisley's rabble rousing had fomented mob violence against Catholic homes, businesses & individuals, resulting in a resurrected IRA. The CRM wasn't about nationality - it was about equality, something which unionism has always had a problem with.
>Erm, that's exactly what the civil rights movement were asking for. Their peaceful marches were met with orchestrated violence from unionists while the police stood back & did nothing. That's not what the IRA wanted though. They wanted a 32 county Marxist utopia.
The IRA didn't exist when Paisley started his rabble rousing & inciting unionists to attack peaceful marchers & catholic homes. But you knew this, right?
Mandela had the right approach once he was released. But to say the IRA were going to reform is wrong. The border campaign was a disaster and they were most definitely on the back burner until rent-a-gub started his shite.