Home > Ian Paisley
:See also Ian Paisley, Jr.The Reverend Ian Richard Kyle Paisley (born April 6, 1926) is a politician and church leader in Northern Ireland.
The Rev. Ian Paisley, MP,
MLA
Leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church.
In the early 1950s Ian Paisley helped to establish the first Free Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland. He then following a vote in his own church joined the Free Presbyterian Church and was elected moderator of it, keeping this post ever since. He subsequently set up his own newspaper, the Protestant Telegraph as a mechanism for further spreading his message. He is also the founder and leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.
1 'No Surrender'
In the 1960s he campaigned against Prime Minister of Northern Ireland Terence O'Neill's rapprochement with the Republic of Ireland and his meetings with his counterpart in the Republic, Sean Lemass. He opposed efforts by O'Neill as prime minister to deliver civil rights to the minority nationalist community in Northern Ireland, notably the abolition of gerrymandering of local electoral areas for the election of urban and county councils. Paisley's hardline approach (summed up in his catchphrase "no surrender") led him in turn to attack O'Neill's successors as prime minister, Major James Chichester-Clark (later called Lord Moyola) and Brian Faulkner. Paisley opposed the 1972 suspension by the British government of Edward HeathThe Right Honourable Sir Edward Richard George Heath KG, MBE (born July 9, 1916) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. His spell in office represented a transition between the tr of the Northern Ireland parliament and government (known collectively by the term Stormont due to the location of Parliament Buildings on the BelfastStormont is a suburb of the city of Belfast, in which the Northern Ireland Parliament building and Stormont Castle area located. estate). He opposed the Sunningdale AgreementThe Sunningdale Agreement in December 1973, was an attempt to solve the Northern Ireland problem. It established a form of devolution, which unlike the previous form, would not be dominated by the Ulster Unionist Party. Unionists, however, feared that it which sought to rework relationships between Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, and which provided for a power-sharing executive (government) involving both communities in Northern Ireland, and a controversial all-island Council of IrelandThe Council of Ireland may refer to one of two councils, one proposed and one implemented for a brief period. 1920 Government of Ireland Act The Council of Ireland contemplated by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, was to have been an all-Ireland body co linking Northern Ireland and the Republic on a legal but not constitutional level. Sunningdale collapsed following the Ulster Workers' Strike which cut water and electricity supplies to many homes, and the failure of the British Secretary of State for Northern IrelandThe Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is the British cabinet minister who has responsibility for the government of Northern Ireland. The office was created following the suspension, then abolition, of the home rule Parliament of Northern Ireland in, Merlyn ReesMerlyn Rees, Baron Merlyn-Rees PC (born 1920), was a British Labour party Member of Parliament from 1963 until 1992. In that year, he was created a Baron and entered the House of Lords. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from March 1974 until and the British Prime Minister, Harold WilsonJames Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx KG, OBE, PC ( March 11, 1916 May 24, 1995) was one of the more successful Labour Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and a 1960s icon. Wilson is regarded by many as probably one of the more intellectual poli, to defend the power-sharing executive. Supporters of Paisley played an important role in orchestrating the strike.
