Ian Paisley: From maverick to first minister

Jun 5, 2008, 16:10 GMT

Northern Ireland\'s First Minister Ian Paisley departs his office to speak to the media for the last time at Stormont Castle. Belfast. Thursday, 5 June, 2008. The new Democratic Unionist Party leader Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness are to be nominated as first and deputy first minister at Stormont later this afternoon EPA/STR

Belfast - Ian Paisley, who steps down as Northern Ireland's first minister on Thursday, showed a more mellow face during his year in office than he had during decades as a firebrand Presbyterian cleric and Unionist politician who blasted Catholicism and Irish nationalism.

Since becoming the head of a power-sharing executive between Protestants and Catholics in the British province in May 2007, the 82-year-old has maintained an amiable working relationship with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness - a former member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who seeks unity with southern Ireland.

So apparently close did the erstwhile foes become that they were nicknamed the 'Chuckle Brothers' as they triumphantly toured the US and the Brussels headquarters of the European Union.

Paisley also travelled to southern Ireland where he visited the scene of the Battle of the Boyne where Protestant and Catholic claimants for the English throne fought in 1690 and the port of Cobh, the last stop for the Belfast-built Titanic on its fateful 1912 voyage.

The formerly bellicose preacher also met and shook hands with then Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern and Irish President Mary McAleese, herself a Northern Ireland nationalist.

Some analysts say Paisley's closeness to Irish nationalists, once his sworn enemies, fatally weakened his support within his Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), prompting his announcement in March that he would step down.

Another factor was the resignation of his son, Ian Paisley Junior, from the power-sharing executive over allegations of lobbying and links to a developer.

Paisley Senior was also replaced as the head of the church he founded, the Free Presbyterians.

Once famous for his cries of 'No!' and 'Never!' to any deal with Irish nationalists in the province, Paisley's agreement to enter government with Sinn Fein, the biggest nationalist party and the political wing of the IRA, puzzled many.

Born in Armagh in 1926 and brought up in Ballymena in County Antrim, Paisley was ordained a Protestant minister in 1946 before breaking away to form his own church five years later.

Co-founder of the DUP in 1971, Paisley was first elected to the British parliament in 1974 and the European Parliament in 1979. He stepped down as a member of the European Parliament in 2004.

Over the decades he resolutely opposed any signs of rapprochement between the Irish and British governments on the subject of Northern Ireland and fought against nationalist attempts to achieve full civil rights in the late 1960s.

Paisley supported the loyalist general strike which led to the collapse in 1974 of the Sunningdale Agreement, a power-sharing deal between nationalists and unionists.

He also opposed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and denounced David Trimble, leader of the then largest unionist party, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), for making a deal with Sinn Fein even though the IRA had yet to decommission its arms.

Paisley's hardline stance won him votes among disillusioned unionists and his DUP party surpassed the UUP in 2003 local assembly polls, becoming the biggest party in Northern Ireland.

The unionist leader suffered a life-threatening illness in 2004 and it has been speculated that this inspired the volte-face that saw him sharing power with his erstwhile enemies.

In the October 2006 St Andrews Agreement - and after the IRA had decommissioned its weapons - Paisley agreed to share power with Sinn Fein if the nationalist party recognized the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Following this recognition, a power-sharing executive was restored on May 8, 2007.

'We had a terrible time, but I think those bad old days are now past,' Paisley said last week.