65 Facts About Ian Paisley

1.

Ian Paisley became known for his fiery sermons and regularly preached anti-Catholicism, anti-ecumenism and against homosexuality.

2.

Ian Paisley gained a large group of followers who were referred to as Paisleyites.

3.

Ian Paisley's efforts helped bring down the Sunningdale Agreement of 1974.

4.

Ian Paisley opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, with less success.

5.

In 2005, Ian Paisley's DUP became the largest unionist party in Northern Ireland, displacing the Ulster Unionist Party, which had dominated unionist politics since 1905 and had been an instrumental party in the Good Friday Agreement.

6.

Ian Paisley stepped down as First Minister and DUP leader in mid-2008, and left politics in 2011.

7.

Ian Paisley was made a life peer in 2010 as Baron Bannside.

Related searches
Margaret Thatcher
8.

Ian Richard Kyle Paisley was born in Armagh, County Armagh, and brought up in the town of Ballymena, County Antrim, where his father James Kyle Paisley was an Independent Baptist pastor who had previously served in the Ulster Volunteers under Edward Carson.

9.

Three of their children followed their father into politics or religion: Kyle is a Free Presbyterian minister; Ian Paisley is a DUP MP; and Rhonda, a retired DUP councillor.

10.

Ian Paisley had a brother, Harold, who is an evangelical fundamentalist.

11.

When he was a teenager, Paisley decided to follow his father and become a Christian minister.

12.

Ian Paisley delivered his first sermon aged 16 in a mission hall in County Tyrone.

13.

In 1951, a congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland was forbidden by church authorities to hold a meeting in their own church hall at which Paisley was to be the speaker.

14.

Ian Paisley promoted a highly conservative form of Biblical literalism and anti-Catholicism, which he described as "Bible Protestantism".

15.

Ian Paisley set up his own newspaper in February 1966, the Protestant Telegraph, as a mechanism for further spreading his message.

16.

When Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother met Pope John XXIII in 1958, Ian Paisley condemned them for "committing spiritual fornication and adultery with the Antichrist".

17.

Ian Paisley organised protests against the lowering of flags on public buildings to mark the Pope's death.

18.

In 1988, having given advance warning of his intentions, Ian Paisley interrupted a speech being delivered by Pope John Paul II in the European Parliament.

19.

Ian Paisley was admonished by Parliamentary President Lord Plumb, who formally excluded him.

20.

Ian Paisley believed the European Union is a part of a conspiracy to create a Roman Catholic superstate controlled by the Vatican.

21.

Ian Paisley continued to denounce the Catholic Church and the Pope after the incident.

22.

Ian Paisley preached against homosexuality, supported laws criminalising it and picketed various gay rights events.

23.

Ian Paisley denounced it as "a crime against God and man and its practice is a terrible step to the total demoralisation of any country".

24.

Ian Paisley's campaign failed when legislation was passed in 1982 as a result of the previous year's ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Dudgeon v United Kingdom.

25.

In 1949, Paisley formed a Northern Irish branch of the National Union of Protestants, the group being led in the UK by his uncle, W St Clair Taylor.

Related searches
Margaret Thatcher
26.

Independent Unionist MP Norman Porter came to lead the National Union of Protestants, while Paisley became treasurer, but Paisley left after Porter refused to join the Free Presbyterian Church.

27.

Ian Paisley publicly played a tape of her religious conversion but refused to help with the search for her, saying he would rather go to prison than return her to her Catholic family.

28.

In 1956, Ian Paisley was one of the founders of Ulster Protestant Action.

29.

In June 1959, Ian Paisley addressed a UPA rally in the mainly-Protestant Shankill district of Belfast.

30.

Ian Paisley instigated and led loyalist opposition to the civil rights movement over the next few years.

31.

Ian Paisley led opposition against Terence O'Neill, Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

32.

Ian Paisley forced the Stormont government to mobilise B-Specials for the entire month of April with the hope of outlawing public commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

33.

Ian Paisley failed in this objective but did succeed in pressuring the government to ban trains from the Republic transporting people to Northern Ireland for the ceremonies.

34.

One of those convicted for the killings said after his arrest "I am terribly sorry I ever heard of that man Ian Paisley or decided to follow him".

35.

On 6 June 1966, Paisley led a march to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church against what he claimed to be its "Romeward trend".

36.

On 16 April 1970, in a by-election to the Northern Ireland Parliament, Ian Paisley, standing on behalf of the Protestant Unionist Party, won the Bannside seat formerly held by Prime Minister Terence O'Neill.

37.

British Government papers, released in 2002, show that in 1971 Ian Paisley attempted to reach a compromise with the Social Democratic and Labour Party.

38.

Ian Paisley moved from the head of the table but carried the chair away with him and the two argued over the chair itself, with Ian Paisley eventually allowed to keep it as he claimed to need a chair with arms due to back pain.

39.

Ian Paisley was charged with obstruction of the highway and then released.

40.

Ian Paisley opposed the European Economic Community but stood for election to the European Parliament to give a platform to his views and those of his supporters.

41.

In June 1979, in the first election to the European Parliament, Ian Paisley won one of the three Northern Ireland seats.

42.

Ian Paisley easily retained his seat in every European election until he stood down in 2004, receiving the highest popular vote of any British MEP.

43.

Ian Paisley declared: "This is a small token of the men who are placed to devastate any attempt by Margaret Thatcher and Charles Haughey to destroy the Union".

44.

In December 1981, the State Department of the United States revoked Ian Paisley's visa, citing his "divisive rhetoric" and forcing him to cancel plans for a two-week speaking and fundraising tour in the US.

45.

Ian Paisley insisted the cancellation was part of a "conspiracy between the Thatcher Government and the USA Government to sell out Ulster".

Related searches
Margaret Thatcher
46.

Ian Paisley, who stood on the platform in a red beret, said "there are many like myself who'd like to see the Agreement brought down by democratic means, but wouldn't we all be fools if we weren't prepared".

47.

On 9 December 1986, Ian Paisley was ejected from the European Parliament for continually interrupting a speech by Margaret Thatcher.

48.

Ian Paisley was involved in the Drumcree dispute during the late 1980s and 1990s.

49.

Ian Paisley was a former member of the Orange Order and belonged to a similar Protestant brotherhood: the Apprentice Boys.

50.

Ian Paisley addressed the yearly gathering of the Independent Orange Order.

51.

Ian Paisley addressed a rally at Drumcree, telling a crowd of thousands:.

52.

The DUP fought the resulting election to the Northern Ireland Assembly, to which Ian Paisley was elected while keeping his seats in the Westminster and European parliaments.

53.

Ian Paisley assumed the chairmanship of the Agriculture Committee of the Northern Ireland Assembly created by the Belfast Agreement.

54.

The Minister for Agriculture, the SDLP's Brid Rodgers, remarked that she and Ian Paisley had a "workmanlike" relationship.

55.

At the age of 78, Ian Paisley retired from his European Parliament seat at the 2004 elections and was succeeded by Jim Allister.

56.

Ian Paisley again retained his North Antrim seat in the 2005 UK general election.

57.

On Monday 26 March 2007, the date of the British Government deadline for devolution or dissolution, Ian Paisley led a DUP delegation to a meeting with a Sinn Fein delegation led by Gerry Adams, which agreed on a DUP proposal that the executive would be established on 8 May.

58.

On 18 June 2010, Ian Paisley was created a life peer as Baron Bannside, of North Antrim in the County of Antrim, and he was introduced in the House of Lords on 5 July 2010.

59.

In November 2011, Ian Paisley announced to his congregation, which he had led for over 60 years, that he would retire as minister.

60.

Ian Paisley delivered his final sermon to a packed attendance at the Martyrs' Memorial Hall on 18 December 2011, and finally retired from his religious ministry at the age of 85, on 27 January 2012.

61.

In February 2012, Ian Paisley was admitted to hospital with heart problems.

62.

Jim Flanagan, editor of the Ballymena Guardian, who spoke to close family friends, said that Paisley had been able to communicate "to some degree" with family members.

63.

In late December 2013, Ian Paisley was taken to hospital for "necessary tests".

64.

Ian Paisley died in Belfast on 12 September 2014, aged 88.

65.

Ian Paisley's body was buried at Ballygowan, in County Down on 15 September following a private funeral, and a public memorial for 830 invited guests was held in the Ulster Hall on 19 October 2014.

Related searches
Margaret Thatcher