Cathal BarryWe should give thanks for Ian Paisley’s conversion, says Fr Joe McVeigh
“At least you know where you stand with Paisley,” Catholics used to say. “You never know with the other crowd,” meaning the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) with their Masonic connections and their close attachment to the Orange Order and their contacts with those in the higher echelons of the British political and military establishment.
Paisley never seemed to have these connections or even to want them.
During the 1970s and 1980s, I had very little time for Ian Paisley. When he shouted at St John Paul II in the European Parliament, I thought him an ignorant buffoon. I remember when at a debate in the Oxford Union he produced a Communion wafer and mocked the Mass.
Vicious
He could be very vicious and insulting. He attacked Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich as the “IRA’s bishop from Crossmaglen”. His Protestant Telegraph newspaper, which I read occasionally, was full of venom and sectarian hatred of Rome and ‘papists’.
There is no doubt that he had a widespread appeal among ordinary Protestants for this kind of hate-filled rhetoric. Faced with the uncertainties of the future and fearful of the intentions of the British government, he played on Protestant fears and insecurity.
My earliest memory of Paisley was of him throwing snowballs at Captain Terence O’Neill and the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, when they met to bring about closer cooperation between the North and the Southern Government. He used his booming voice to full effect to make his point (‘never, never, never’) or to shout somebody down. He was especially bad-mannered towards journalists from the South, asking to smell their breath for alcohol.
It is amazing how the once-reviled ‘man of the cloth’ became the acceptable face of unionism when he decided to share power with his arch-enemies Sinn Féin. He even met Catholic clerics and appeared to be courteous. He befriended Msgr Denis Faul on the issue of ‘the disappeared’ which I thought was interesting, given his stated abhorrence of priests and what he dismissed as ‘priest craft’.
It still amazes me how this change of attitude took place and yet, in another way, it was almost inevitable as part of consolidating the peace process and as part of Paisley’s personal pursuit of power.
I never met Ian Paisley face-to-face but I came very close. In 1990, I was sitting in the departure lounge at Heathrow Airport, sipping a pint of Guinness to relax before boarding the flight for Belfast when Paisley breezed in carrying his briefcase, followed by his then sidekick, Peter Robinson. I froze for a moment and kept my head down. A short time before that, he had mentioned me in a disparaging way in the course of an RTÉ interview and I thought to myself if he sees me drinking ‘the devil’s buttermilk’ I am in for it. I do not think he recognised me.
I ended up sitting a few seats behind himself and Robinson on the plane. There was no eye contact.
At that time, to be singled out by Paisley was uncomfortable. I did feel that by referring to me in the way he did, he was setting me up for some kind of attack.
He usually treated priests like Fr Des Wilson, Msgr Raymond Murray and myself with contempt because we dared to speak out on behalf of our people. His friendship with Msgr Denis Faul was the sign of things to come, the first sign of mellowing.
Ian Paisley is the last of the great Northern demagogues. He followed in the footsteps of Hanna, Cooke and Carson until he saw the light and took the path of reconciliation. He was caught in a trap – the trap of bigotry and anti-Catholicism – not entirely of his own making. He fell into it when he opposed the Civil Rights movement in 1968. He later recognised his mistake.
In May 2007, when he became First Minister, I think he was glad to have found a way out of the trap and I suppose it took some courage for him to make that decision to join in a power-sharing government with Martin McGuinness who was always gracious towards him.
They say that his near death experience had a serious effect on him. They also say that his wife, Eileen, had a positive influence on him and persuaded him to become a man of peace towards the end of his life.
Whatever happened to bring about his conversion and the softening of his attitudes, let’s be grateful for it. It marked the beginning of a new chapter in Irish politics and Irish history.
Fr Joe McVeigh is a human rights campaigner and assistant priest in St Michael’s parish, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.