Wednesday, April 04, 2007
“I am also proud of my Irish roots”
As noted earlier, the DUP leader Ian Paisley went to Dublin today, Farmleigh to be exact where he was met by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern - the RTÉ video report of the resultant handshake is here and the BBC report is here [realplayer file]. The quote in the title is from Ian Paisley’s speech, in which he said, “I am proud to be an Ulsterman, but I am also proud of my Irish roots… although I would put the Ulsterman before the Irishman in my Constitution.” Ian Paisley has also been interviewed by Stephen Nolan [??? - Ed] partial transcript here
From the BBC report on tonight’s interview, to be broadcast at 10.40pm BBC1
But when it came to the crunch, he said he was prepared to “step out of the class of the coward into the class of the man who is prepared to sell himself and his reputation for the sake of this country”.
“We were told if we didn’t do this then it was going to be curtains for our country,” he says.
“How would I have faced my people if I had allowed this country to have the union destroyed and the setting up of a joint government by the south of Ireland?”
There’s another interesting exchange..
Does Mr Paisley still hate “Sinn Fein/IRA”?
“I hate the principles of the IRA and I hate the murders that they carried out, and I hate what they did to innocent people,” says Mr Paisley.
What about Gerry Adams, who sat beside Mr Paisley in that already iconic photograph at Stormont - is he still to be considered “an enemy of the Protestant people”?
“I am not in a position to say what his present feeling is at this moment, but we know his policies, and know what they are.
“Now, having said that, there has been a change and in a few days’ time the same Mr Adams will stand beside me and he will take an oath that he is going to accept the police force of Northern Ireland.”
One other point to note is that Farmleigh has previously been used to host visits from “the Chinese Premier, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, the King and Queen of Malaysia and of course on the Day of Welcomes on 1st May 2004, Farmleigh played host to the 25 Heads of State from Europe.”
Pete Baker @ 06:18 PM
Re. The Third Policeman’s references to “a group of people who have been on this island since before the USA was even a country”...also worth noting that these Scottish settlers were descendents of the ‘Scoti’ tribe who were Gaelic raiders from the North of Ireland...lets get past all this ‘planters and Native Irish’ stuff - in Ulster, Catholics & Protestants are pretty much borne from the same stock…
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 08:25 AM(Also, these Scots-Irish or Ulster-Scots as Unionists like to call them now had strong Republican leanings, an aspect which is ignored today.
‘The United Irishmen’ and ‘Young Irelanders’ were mainly all Protestant too. Protestants should check this history out for their ancestors were not always loyal obedient god-fearing subjects of the English).Paisley sure has changed his tune. When the Irish Taoiseach Séan Lemass visited NI in the 1965 Paisley was there throwing snowballs at him in protest. So good to see he has come to his senses and his reason and rationality has matured with old age.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 08:56 AMThere’s the old story of when TK Whittaker and Jack Lynch were at Stormont in the 60s & Paisley was throwing snowballs shouting ‘no pope here’. Lynch turns to Whittaker and says ‘Which one of us does he think is the Pope?’
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 09:25 AMGréagóir - the further issue here is that it is disgraceful (and somewhat suspicious) that in Ulster, the history of the Scots-Irish – most notably the persecution of Presbyterians by the Anglican establishment, mass immigration to America & their impact on that continent (see James Webb’s ‘Born Fighting’), the 1798 rebellion etc etc – was never taught in Protestant schools. Giving Ulster Prods a true sense of pride in their history and heritage rather than just some half-arsed notion of ‘Britishness’ could make a lot of difference to identity politics in the North..
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 09:29 AM“having denied others the opportunity for so long and having cost 1,000’s of lives in the meantime, how can he look at himself in the mirror every morning”
All that suffering, destruction, wasting time - all to get to a position where Paisley is head bombadier. I hope his conscience kills him.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 10:25 AMCharlie - I suspect that Presbyterians/Unionists from those parts where the United Irishmen were strong (eg east Down, south Antrim) know more about 1798 than you give them credit for - coming from east Down myself, I’ve always been aware of the main battle sites, graves, characters, etc. However, most with the knowledge are also aware the rebellion in Wexford and thereabouts was turned into a sectarian pogrom by Catholic ‘United Irishmen’, so the attitude has generally been “won’t get fooled again"…
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 10:31 AMA classic piece of doublespeak from Dr Ian or is there another explanation?
1. They’ve moved Ulster?
2. Ian’s speechwriters are using some chaep piece of software from the U.S. that reverted to default mode?
Presumably Ian only agreed to do the gig because it was in Farmleigh, where Berties entertains visiting foreign dignitaries and the like
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 10:54 AMBIGGER PICTURE
I wasn’t referring to Sunningdale and the UWC alone I was refering to his actions in the 60’s in the Falls, over O’Neill, his actions over the Civil Rights, mountain tops, his attacks on every UUP leader since O’Neill and practically evething he has ever said or done until he sat down with Gerry Adams.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 12:36 PMTochais SÃoraà ...cheers, yep it was Jack Lynch who was the Taoiseach of the time whom Paisley threw the snoballs at and not Séan Lemass as I had stated.
I agree Charlie, Unionists have a rather limited insight of their history and that of the whole island of Ireland.
Suilven, the incidents at Wexford and Scullabogue were indeed horrific, but mass propaganda was made of the two to break the United Irishmen insurgency and instill fear in Protestants. A fear that is still somewhat bred in the Protestants of Ulster today.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 12:40 PMsuilven, maybe check out Scullabogue a bit more, things aren’t always as black and white as they seem. There were protestant rebels amongst the perpetrators and loyalist catholics amongst the victims.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 01:58 PMWhile I would never dream of defending the awful slaughters at Wexford Bridge and Scullabogue as Tochais and Gréagóir say it was never as simple as the picture painted. The total deaths from both location amounted to at most 500 (500 too many of course) but in a summer where as many as 50,000 people died the figure is dwarfed.
Indeed the figure may be very similar to the amount killed and tortured by General Lake’s men during the rape of Ulster.
Posted by on Apr 05, 2007 @ 03:35 PMFT
The fact remains that other people’s actions have also been involved in those steps including many Ulster Unionists who later signed up to the GFA in 1998.It is wrong therefore to lay the troubles and thousands of murders at one person’s door.
Hate his politics if you must (and clearly do) and dont stoop to that level when it is just an argument that has absolutley no credibility
Posted by on Apr 06, 2007 @ 02:55 PM
