The BBC Spotlight series on the Troubles has shone a less than complimentary torch on former First Minister, the late Rev Ian Paisley. Unionist commentator and card-carrying UUP member, Dr John Coulter, shares his own personal experiences of life in his native North Antrim under Paisley senior’s rule – posing the question, how did it all go wrong for the Big Man of Unionism? The latest BBC series investigating the Troubles has made some very contentious allegations about the late Rev Ian Paisley and his alleged ‘relationship’ to loyalist extremists. Perhaps what still haunts the late Dr Paisley’s legacy is that when the one-time DUP boss and First Minister stole the power-sharing ground of rival Ulster Unionists, Dr Paisley also inherited their political burial plot.
The incredible journey in finding his own Biblical-style ‘Road to Damascas’ political conversion from Protestant fundamentalism’s Hell fireDr No, to his downfall as the Chuckle Brothers’ Dr Go was already effectively documented in veteran journalist Ed Moloney’s masterpiece, Paisley From Demagogue to Democrat?
Damascus
I have spent much of my own 60 years living and working in Paisley senior’s North Antrim stomping ground.
He rose to power in the Sixties by giving a voice and creating an unholy alliance between two previously muted factions within the ‘Fur Coat Brigade’ dominated Unionist Party – Christian fundamentalists and the loyalist working class.
He fed both an addictive staple diet of ‘No Surrender’, ‘Not an Inch’, and ‘Never, never, never’ using the tactics of direct street confrontation. The Big Man created the iconic image – Paisleyites are not afraid to protest.
It should not come as any surprise that within a year of agreeing to politically sup soup with Shinners, that same confrontational grassroots have reacted in the way he trained them for four decades and sparked coups within his Free Presbyterian Church, party and Stormont Executive.
A devoted family man, children often became unwittingly his best campaigners when handed dozens of election posters for them to carry about.
In April 1970, during the Stormont by-election campaign and Paisley was the Protestant Unionist runner, he canvassed strongly in the staunchly Protestant village of Clough, Co Antrim.
Clough is not just a pulse in Unionism – the village reflects the very heart and soul of Unionism itself. Win Clough, and you will the election.
I was a primary school pupil. My dad, Rev Robert Coulter, was honorary president of the local Unionist Party branch and the area’s Presbyterian minister.
Fundamentalist and working class chums came into the local village school brandishing Paisley posters.
My first encounter with Paisleyism was a sore backside for chanting pro-Unionist Party slogans and referring to this fledgling messiah as “Peashooter Paisley”. It earned me a few fundamentalist hob-nailed boots on the ass.
It wasn’t that Paisley was offering a radical agenda. He just knew how to ‘wind up’ his supporters and they interpreted these demagogue speeches as green lights to physically harass and intimidate Official Unionists off the streets.
North Antrim had been an Ulster Unionist bastion well before the creation of the ruling Ulster Unionist Council in 1905. A matter of weeks after Paisley’s victory in Bannside,came the Westminster General Election of June 1970 where Unionist stalwart Henry Clark was the sitting MP.
I was recruited into the Unionist campaign as a primary pupil. I walked into the Presbyterian manse sitting room to serve Clark his sandwiches after a disastrous canvass around Clough.
Paisley supporters had blocked Clark’s car in a farmer’s lane using a caravette. Even violence was threatened, and eventually the Drumcree-style standoff was prevented when the Unionist team abandoned the hustings.
Clark was clearly shaken, smoking a cigarette, with my father and another key Unionist strategist, the late Rev John Brown from Bushmills, trying to calm Clark. Worse was to follow when a message was brought to him that Paisley supporters had daubed ‘Shoot Clark’ graffiti in the village. Clark went physically white.
The seeds of revolutionary tactics which Paisley sowed among working class loyalists in my home village were to grow into openly confrontational thorns.
So was it any wonder, Paisley’s embracing of power-sharing with Sinn Fein met with the thorns of dissent from grassroots unionism?
As a preacher, Paisley was a staunch, Bible-thumping evangelist. As a journalist, I once covered the installation of elders service at his Free Presbyterian Church in Cloughmills, near my home.
I always left every religious Paisley meeting with a single thought – why couldn’t Paisley have stuck solely to Gospel preaching and he could have sparked a global revival as big as noted American evangelist Billy Graham, seeing thousands become ‘born again’ believers?
I have watched school and university chums interpret Paisley’s political rhetoric as a green light to become involved with loyalist paramilitaries, such as Third Force and the UVF.
I have watched Paisley supporters physically jostle and thump my dad – an Ulster Unionist – during his 1983 Westminster campaign.
But behind the Hell fire cleric and No Surrender unionist venom, was a devoted husband to wife Eileen. I only once witnessed despair on Paisley’s face.
During the election count for the 1982 Assembly in Ballymena Town Hall, Eileen bumped her head. Paisley immediately abandoned our interview to be with her. I caught a glimpse as he tenderly cared for her – he was almost in tears with worry.
For Big Ian, while God was his spiritual shepherd, Eileen was his physical rock.
He always referred to me as “young man” or “young Coulter” when we met, once complaining to my dad about an article I had written when I was in my mid 40s, emphasising the role of the family in Paisley’s outlook.
It was the 2003 Assembly election count in Ballymoney. Both Paisley senior and my dad had been elected on the first count. Later that day, Paisley senior approached dad to complain about my article. Dad told Paisley senior that I was in my forties, married with kids, and offered to give Paisley senior my mobile number.
Paisley’s reaction was typical of the man who believed in the power of the family unit: “No Robert, you’re his father; you speak to him!”
Paisley has often been compared to the Grand Old Duke of York who led his men up to the top of the hill, and down again – except Paisley left them there. This fuelled a perception of hypocrisy about Paisley.
He would picket meetings of the Evangelical Prayer Breakfast movement because my dad was present with Catholic priests, yet Paisley could meet face to face with the Irish Catholic leadership before signing the St Andrews Agreement.
Paisley had the skills of knowing when to pull himself back from the brink – but many of his supporters, almost politically drunk with the fervour of his speeches, did not know when the red line should not be crossed.
How many young loyalists ended up in jail because they took the words of Paisley rhetoric too literally? How many Catholics are dead because loyalist death squads put their own specific spin on Paisley’s hard-hitting speeches?
As president of the Clough Unionist branch, my dad was once called upon in the early 1970s to escort the land-owning Unionist chairman from the meeting because of a lynch mob of Paisley supporters. The chairman was dubbed ‘Dutch Doherty’ by the Paisley loyalists because of the former’s likeness to the republican icon.
Paisley’s political genius was not in what he said, but in his oratory skills in getting the blood boiling.
In 1987, during the General Election campaign, I was the North Antrim Press Officer for the Young Unionists, the UUP’s youth wing. Paisley was the agreed candidate in the protest campaign against the Anglo Irish Agreement.
To give us an identity, the only way we could out-gun Paisley was to be more Right-wing than Paisley, and North Antrim YUs became the most Right-wing in the UUC.
During the hustings one evening as we drove our canvassing cars through the village of Broughshane, we passed the Sinn Fein election team in its cars.
We screeched to a halt, reversed at speed, and piled out of the cars to physically confront the Shinners. Thankfully, wise heads prevailed on both sides and a violent confrontation was averted.
But here we were – young UUP members in our pin-stripped suits baying to “kick the crap out of the Provies”; had we, too, swallowed the potent rhetoric of Ian Paisley on the need to smash Sinn Fein?
Just as Paisley senior relentlessly pursued his opponents within unionism, so too, did his supporters.
In 1998, Independent Orangemen who had been to the fore in forming the overtly anti-Catholicism Caleb Foundation succeeded in getting my book exposing these links – The Orange Card – from being published.
Paisley senior himself has been a victim of the ethos of coups, plots and purges which he constantly fed his supporters since forming the Free Presbyterian Church in 1951.
Boris Johnson wants Ireland to abandon the backstop, the legal guarantee
of maintaining an open border after Brexit, as his price for signing a
deal with the European Union. But should Ireland give way and trust
London? History suggests that could be a mistake. Here are some
examples. By Naomi O’Leary (for Politico).
The Betrayal of Clannabuidhe
“Game of Thrones” has nothing on this.
Brian McPhelim O’Neill was a 16th century Gaelic lord who held lands
that included Belfast and the surrounding territory. It was the time of
the colonisation of Ulster — when land in Ireland’s northeast was
forcibly taken over by English and Scottish settlers — that is the root
of the island’s division today.
O’Neill sided with English forces to take on a rival, the powerful
chieftain Shane O’Neill, and was knighted by the crown. But O’Neill soon
found himself at war with the Earl of Essex, Walter Devereux, who had
been granted permission to take over his lands by Queen Elizabeth I.
Queen Elizabeth I of England knights explorer Sir Francis Drake;
engraved by F. Fraenkel from a drawing by John Gilbert | Hulton Archive
via Getty Images
In the winter of 1574, the Earl of Essex used the pretence of a friendly
banquet to wipe out O’Neill and his family, massacring those in
attendance and taking O’Neill, his wife and brother captive, soon to be
executed.
This breach of ancient hospitality rights has inspired poetry and was
recorded in the medieval Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland as “sufficient
cause of hatred and disgust of the English to the Irish.”
The Treaty of Limerick
This was the treaty that ended the 17th century Williamite War in
Ireland, in which the Protestant Prince William of Orange defeated the
Catholic King James II. The first article of the treaty guaranteed
Catholics would maintain their rights and promised an Irish parliament
would protect them.
However, this was swiftly followed by a series of laws barring Catholics
from holding public office, owning firearms, serving in parliament,
voting, owning a horse worth more than £5, and restricting their ability
to inherit or own property. The stone on which it was reputedly signed
is displayed prominently in the centre of Limerick, which takes its
nickname “Treaty City” from the event.
The Act of Union
This was the act that merged Ireland fully into the United Kingdom in
1801 and dissolved its parliament, partly in response to a rebellion in
1798 that was inspired by the French Revolution and deeply rattled
London.
“There are a lot of parallels to Brexit. The Act of Union was presented
as this big panacea,” said Fin Dwyer, historian and presenter of the
Irish History Podcast. Protection was promised for the Irish economy as
it was integrated with the stronger British market. But protective
measures were abandoned in the subsequent years and the Irish economy
was devastated.
“The effect was dramatic. Within a couple of years people were saying
that Dublin was a different city, that all the rich had fled to London,”
Dwyer said.
The Act of Union also promised Catholic emancipation, by lifting the
legal restrictions on Catholics and allowing them to hold political
office. However, this was blocked by King George III once the act was
signed. It took a massive political movement led by Daniel O’Connell and
another 28 years before the restrictions began to be lifted.
Home Rule
Bills to enact Home Rule — re-establishing a parliament in Dublin to
give Ireland a measure of self-rule — were passed by the House of
Commons but blocked by the House of Lords in 1893, 1912 and 1913. When
the Lords’ objections were finally overcome in 1914 (after the removal
of their veto), the bill’s enactment was delayed indefinitely by the
outbreak of World War I.
The repeated delays contributed to the decision by nationalists to
abandon the parliamentary route and mount a rebellion seeking full
independence in 1916.
Those in favor of the union, particularly in the northeast of the
island, felt betrayed by British support for Home Rule. Legislation on
Home Rule fanned sectarian tensions in Belfast and was accompanied by
deadly riots; some 500,000 signed the Ulster Covenant in 1912 refusing
to recognise an Irish parliament, and unionists began to militarize to
resist it.
Partition
Britain managed to betray both nationalists and unionists with
partition.
The idea of resolving the Irish demand for self-rule with strong
opposition in the north by dividing the island in two was initially
introduced by British negotiators as a poison pill.
“The whole idea of throwing partition out there was to scupper Home
Rule, to make a proposal so terrible that no one would ever accept it,”
said Tim McMahon, associate professor of history at Marquette University
in Milwaukee. “Both nationalists and unionists felt that they were being
double-dealt.”
Nationalists were told that any partition would be temporary. Unionists
were told that the aim was to keep the entire island within the U.K.,
and at worst there would be Home Rule for Dublin and special protection
for the nine counties of Ulster. These promises were used to help
recruit some 210,000 men to fight for Britain in World War I.
What ultimately happened was the partition of six counties in Ulster
rather than nine, in order to ensure a stable unionist majority, while
Britain agreed to an Irish Free State that went significantly further
than Home Rule. For unionists, it was abandonment. For nationalists,
partition and the requirement that members of the new Irish parliament
would have to swear loyalty to the king was so bitter it provoked a
civil war.
The division was particularly traumatic for those who found themselves
on the wrong side of the border. Northern nationalists had believed they
would soon live under all-island rule. Unionists in the counties of
Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal suddenly found themselves living in the
Catholic-dominated Irish Free State.
“You now have British politicians saying the Irish are bringing this
border up to stop us from leaving Europe. As if the Irish put the border
there,” said McMahon. “I would be leery of negotiating with such people
just as a matter of principle.”
Putting Britain first
During World War II, Britain offered the Irish government of Éamon de
Valera unification if it agreed to join the war effort. De Valera
refused, as it would entail stationing British forces across the island,
and he did not trust that the promise would be kept.
“I think this specific example is a really good one for pointing out why
Ireland might be cautious about trusting the British government.
Proposals like this are done purely in Britain’s self-interest. It’s
about finding the particular carrot that will entice Ireland to do what
they would like,” said McMahon.
“There were lots of suggestions after Brexit like ‘why don’t the Irish
rejoin the Commonwealth?’ ‘Why don’t they just leave with us?’ That
makes perfect sense to someone for whom Britain is No. 1. It makes no
sense for someone with any sense of the Anglo-Irish relationship for
hundreds of years, or the benefits that Ireland gets from its European
Union membership now. It’s purely about British self-interest.”
History offers countless examples of policy set in London wreaking havoc
in Ireland, not least in the Great Famine of the 1840s, which devastated
the Irish population through starvation, emigration and disease.
“I think you’ve got several occasions where you have this disregard in
British politics for Irish interest. I think the problem is that it’s
reinforced today by the sense of the British government not
acknowledging Irish history, and a complete lack of understanding in
Britain about these issues,” said Dwyer.
“I do think it’s reflective of a conscious amnesia towards Britain’s
imperial past, an intentional amnesia.”
The following was the address delivered to this year’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration in Bundoran, organised by Republican Sinn Féin, by political activist and writer, Sean Bresnahan. A chairde, It is a great honour to speak here today, as we gather in tribute to the men of ’81 — who laid down their lives in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, that others might know a better tomorrow. We remember with them Gaughan and Stagg — also martyred on Hunger Strike, during the most recent phase of the war for freedom — as we remember all who made the supreme sacrifice in service of the Republican Movement. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a n-anama uasal. There are no words to properly convey the horror — the sheer utter horror — of what happened that dreadful summer in Ireland, when these brave men went to their deaths on the Long Kesh Hunger Strike. The horrific deaths they endured are testament to their courage and conviction but also of the need, on our part, to ensure they were not for nothing. Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee, Mickey Devine; we speak their names with pride. We speak, too, of Michael Gaughan, who died in Parkhurst Prison, and of Frank Stagg, who laid down his life in Wakefield. We salute their courage and pay tribute to their sacrifice. May God give rest to their brave and noble Irish souls. We command their families — who bore with great dignity the deaths of their loved ones, and who suffer still their loss. We remember especially at this time Margaret Doherty, mother of Volunteer Kieran Doherty, who passed to her eternal reward just this month, and Patsy Lynch, brother of Volunteer Kevin Lynch, who was buried during the week. May they know peace. It is only right that we acknowledge, too, their friends and comrades — the ‘300 Spartans’ — who endured with them the Blanket Protest, who watched their comrades leave the wing for the last time, never to return, and who live with the pain to this day. We also pay tribute to the women of Armagh Gaol. The courage of this group of Irish Patriots, who suffered unimaginable horror in the depths of those gaols, for me is beyond compare. We will never forget what you lived through and what you put yourselves through in defence of the Republic. From this platform today, sincerely, we thank you. We are mindful also that there are those, still, who endure imprisonment for the cause of the Republic in 2019. We extend to them our support and solidarity. The Republican war for freedom was not a criminal enterprise, as presented by those who allowed the Hunger Strikers to go to their deaths, and such painful deaths. The Republican war for freedom carried not only a moral right — of the dispossessed and downtrodden; of the colonised and occupied. It carried the lawful right and authority of the Irish Republic. The criminal in Ireland was and remains Britain. Those ten men suffered death to uphold the right of the Republic, their demand to be treated as political prisoners — to be afforded the status thus warranted — born of the enduring reality that they were not mere British criminals, as labelled, but Irish soldiers. They went to their deaths asserting that Britain had no right or title to Ireland — that her actions in Ireland had no lawful basis. It remains the case. What was at stake in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh remains at stake today. For the battle in the H-Blocks was ultimately one for the right of the Republic to stand — a battle yet to be won. The revisionist notion that the struggle in Ireland is to uphold the Good Friday Agreement is a fallacy. Our struggle remains as it has always been; to uphold the integrity of the Irish Republic, that its sovereignty extend over all Ireland. It was for this and no less that the Hunger Strikers died. This demands of us, today, that we renew our commitment to the Irish Republic — not only in a mere rhetorical sense but in a real and lived way. At this time of renewed opportunity, as Brexit and demographic change speed new political realities, we must better engage the political terrain with the Irish Republic as our masthead. Our ambition must be that Ireland, first and before all else, be constituted as a 32-county republic — as set out and envisaged under the 1916 Proclamation and as demanded, indeed, by the Hunger Strikers. This must be the starting point on which future strategies are premised. Whatever be those strategies, their forward intent and outcome must be to end the usurp of the Republic. It was for this that the Hunger Strikers joined the movement and ultimately for this that they died. A century ago at the Mansion House, on 21st January 1919, the Easter Republic was constituted in law under the Declaration of Irish Independence. 100 years forward, its revolutionary vision of an Ireland free and sovereign — where her people would control their own destinies — where the divisions of the past would be no more — a vision shared by no less than the Hunger Strikers, who laid down their lives in its pursuit — remains for ourselves to realise. As Mexican proverb attests: ‘they tried to bury us; they did not know we were seeds’. In that dark year of 1981, Britain tried to bury the Republic by targeting the most vulnerable of its pillars — the imprisoned. She did not succeed. The iron men of Long Kesh, with those who went before them, stood fast in the face of the coloniser. Those brave men show the world, through steadfast heroism and selfless sacrifice, through that grim summer of 1981, that Ireland could not be defeated. And we have not been defeated — for still we are here. In the name and memory of our brave Hunger Strikers — who died that we might be free — we will achieve that shining Republic for which they fought and died. May this be the generation that sees the flag unfurled. An Phoblacht Abú.
Rioting erupted in the Creggan area of Derry this week as scores of PSNI carried out raids in the area. Petrol bombs were thrown at a line of police Landrovers on Monday in Creggan Heights. Around 15 houses were evacuated while PSNI searches took place. The PSNI later said they found a device in a car in the area.
The confrontation in the Creggan followed a particularly violent police raid in Strabane. Saoradh said the PSNI had “stormed” a house of a local Republican in Strabane “smashing the door in”. “The man was assaulted in his own home, stripped down naked, they forced a bolier suit on him and dragged him off to Musgrave interrogation centre,” they said. “To add salt to the wound, they lifted his 5 year old daughter from her bed and put her out into the freezing cold, the ransacking of his home went on to 7.30am this morning.” The PSNI claimed they had discovered a rocket device immediately above the PSNI barracks in the town which could have launched shells into their base. It had “failed to deploy” but it was “set up and ready to go”, they said. Saoradh said “upwards of 80 Crown Force personnel including armed British soldiers and countless undercover operatives” had been used in the subsequent raids in Derry. “Not content with targeting legitimate political activists and their children during heavy handed home invasions, Crown Forces attempted to profile an entire community as they shifted their attention to Creggan,” they said. “Upwards of 80 Crown Force personnel including armed British Soldiers and countless undercover operatives descended upon central Creggan. “These unwanted British mercenaries had to utilise such a large number of personnel complete with heavy weaponry and armoured vehicles to saturate the estate as they don’t have the support of the people.” Saoradh Doire representative Paddy Gallagher said the riot had been provoked when the PSNI attempted to evacuate local homes using threats of detention under British legislation. “They knew, in traditional fashion, the people of Creggan would resist them. British Crown Forces and their cheerleaders within Constitutional Nationalism know that there is absolutely no support in our communities for Crown Forces, nor has there ever been. “As residents continued to resist the draconian actions of Crown Forces, one local female was physically attacked, being head butted, by one of the British stormtroopers.” Sinn Féin Assembly member Karen Mullan said there had been “significant disruption” resulting in residents being forced to leave their homes. She condemned those involved in the rioting. “There is absolutely no justification for the actions which serve no purpose other than to put people at risk of serious harm and make the situation worse for local residents trying to get on with their lives.”
PLAQUE DEDICATION On Monday, September 16, 2019, at 1100 hours, a Plaque Dedication will be held honoring the memory of Firefighter Keith R. Young, L-158, who died on March 17, 2018. The dedication will take place in the quarters of E-311 & L-158, 145-50 Springfield Blvd. Queens, NY. All off-duty members and their families are invited to attend. Members are requested to attend in dress uniform. FF/SSGT CHRISTOPHER SLUTMAN MEMORIAL T-SHIRT FF/SSGT Christopher Slutman lost his life valiantly saving our country in Afghanistan on April 8, 2019. Engine 46/Ladder 27 has put together a memorial t-shirt drive in Chris’s honor, with all proceeds going to help out with the future of Chris’s wife and 3 young daughters. Shirts are $20 and come in navy or green. Visit www.crossbronxexpress.com to order online. Deadline for orders is this Sunday, September 15, 2019. FRIENDS OF FIREFIGHTERS 12TH ANNUAL FALL GALAThe Friends of Firefighters 12th Annual Fall Gala will be held on October 17, from 6:30 – 10:30 PM at The Prince George Ballroom, 15 East 27th Street, NYC. Join Friends of Firefighters and co-chair Gary Sinise Foundation and their 2019 Honorees, including Man of the Year Tony Catapano, Retired FF Eng 202; Honor Roll Inductee Amy Freeze; Public Service Award Winner Kia Carbone; Step Up Award winners John Fuchs, FF Lad 101, and Edward Howard, FF Lad 4; and Humanitarian Award winner Jimmy Carbone. Visit https://friendsoffirefighters.org/gala2019 for sponsorships, tickets, tables and ad opportunities. FDNY COUNSELING SERVICE UNIT QUARTERLY MEETING The CSU quarterly meeting will be held on Wednesday, September 18, 2019, at 251 Lafayette Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10012. Coffee and bagels at 10:00 AM, 12 Step Meeting at 11:00 AM and Lunch at 12:00 PM. Bring a friend, all are welcome. Please RSVP to (212) 925-6671 and leave a message on Ext. 395. Sponsored by the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. JETS FIRST RESPONDER NIGHTThe Jets will be hosting First Responders Night on September 16, as they take on the Cleveland Browns at 8:15 PM for Monday Night Football at MetLife Stadium. Tickets can be found HERE or by visiting https://tinyurl.com/yyq2e3f8. Members interested in purchasing tickets for a group should contact Tyler Jones at tjones@jets.nfl.com or 973-549-4821. Groups will receive discounted tickets to celebrate First Responders Night with their unit, family & friends and a Stealth Black rally towel giveaway. FDNY HOCKEY TEAM TRYOUTSTryouts for the FDNY Hockey Team will be held at Abe Stark Rink, Coney Island, Brooklyn, Sept. 17th, 24th & Oct. 1st. All tryouts begin at 11:00 AM. For more information, email fdnyhockey25@gmail.com or call 718-913-0720.
