Ian Paisley on A long peace?

I met with Ian Paisley briefly the other day. His often firey persona has been a dominant theme in Northern Irish politics since as far back as I can remember. He is greyer and thinner than he once was, but his spirit and wit is still impressive for a man knocking close on 80.

I asked him what he thought of A Long Peace?, our think piece on the future of Unionism of Northern Ireland. After pinpointing which of the many reports he’d been bombarded with in the last few months it was, he replied, “Aye, it wasn’t bad, I suppose”. I asked him if I could quote him on that, and he immediately qualified it by saying, “Well, what I mean is that it didn’t make my heckles rise! If you know what I mean?”

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.