Confess your sins, the Baroness tells politicians in the North

Eileen, widow of the late Ian, said that her husband and the late Martin McGuinness would never have got into this current “mess” in the first place. Widows defend the reputations of their late spouses, yes; but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong. Paisley and McGuinness did work together well for the common good of the wider community.

Secondly, Eileen criticised DUP leader Arlene Foster for not standing aside when the cash-for-ash scandal broke. This badly-handled heating scheme cost the taxpayer millions, and Mrs Foster was the relevant government minister when the mismanagement was disclosed.

“If you are a minister and someone in your department is wrong, the buck stops at your desk,” Lady Paisley told Gerry Moriarty of the Irish Times.

As for the present deadlock, here Eileen Paisley evoked her own evangelical religious roots. Political leaders need “to confess sin and confess mistakes…” They should “confess where they’ve gone wrong – and they have gone wrong”. They should “cut out all the nonsense and come back and start anew. We need proper government at this time.”

Honesty

People need “to be honest with one another” and to “face up to the truth”. The DUP was as much to blame as Sinn Féin, she said. They should stop “hiding from the truth” and do their duty.

This emphasis on honestly facing your mistakes, confessing your errors and addressing your responsibilities is an approach that would be shared by Catholics, and, I’d imagine, all Christians.

Eileen Paisley might not be an ardent ecumenist, but she is open to listening to others – and one of the personalities who has made an big impression on her is former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

She told me, when I met her a few years ago at the House of Lords, how impressed she was by Bertie.

He walked the Boyne valley with her – and he listened. Eileen writes religious booklets for her Free Presbyterian church and when she sent these to him, he read them and responded, too.

Baroness Paisley is an unelected member of the House of Lords, which, democratically, carries little weight. But because she is detached from the party system, she is now freer to speak candidly.

She is dishing out some very sound advice. See where you went wrong, she tells the political leaders. Face up to it. Now get back and do your job, and serve the people it is your responsibility to serve. So right.

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A lady’s age was once a well-guarded secret – when we asked older relations what age they were they’d reply: “As old as my tongue and older than my teeth.”

The Screen Actors Guild in America has recently sought to re-install the tradition of allowing actresses to withhold their true age, but a judge has ruled that it breaches free speech.

Maybe so, but a little gallantry about anno domini could surely be tolerated…

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Redemption enveloped with love

Tressa Middleton, from Bathgate in Scotland, became Britain’s youngest mother at the age of 12, having been raped by her elder brother Jason when she was just 11 – a shocking occurrence.

Tressa gave birth to the baby girl who was conceived as a result of that crime. She cared for her daughter for two years, but when the social services discovered the circumstances of the baby’s birth, she was made to place the child for adoption.

Tressa subsequently had a difficult adolescence and developed addiction problems with heroin and alcohol.

But she cleaned up her life and now aged 24, she has had another baby girl with her fiancé Darren Young. She’s very happy, but she thinks about her first-born child every day and hopes that the child thrives with her adoptive family.

She doesn’t want her daughter to know about the circumstances of her birth.

It is a sad story and yet the child born of a terrible and incestuous rape is loved by her birth mother, and must surely be cherished by her adoptive family.  Redemptive.

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In response to the death of the evangelist Billy Graham, many Protestant churches – especially in Wales – went full throttle into his favourite hymn ‘Amazing Grace’ last weekend. It’s fabulously uplifting, both in tune and in lyrics, and there’s a great story behind it – the composer, John Newton, had led a dissolute youth and became a slave-owner who repented his ways.  It’s all about redemption and the vision of faith.

Another great thing about ‘Amazing Grace’ is that it’s so singable. Most of the Lenten hymns in our own churches not only seem obscure and dirge-like – understandably, dolefulness is part of Lent – but so difficult to sing. Small wonder so few members of the congregation seem moved to join in.