Interview with Doctor Ian Paisley, conducted in his office at Stormont on Friday 17th April 2009. Interview by Peter Harrison
Well 19, I was under the control of the ministry and at 20, I was ordained. My father was a Protestant man and I came from a protestant family, that was my heritage. But I was never brought up to hate Roman Catholics, I played with Roman Catholics. This idea that RC boys and Protestant boys kicked cuts out of each other is nonsense. Absolute lies. I used to go spend my holidays near a place called Warren Point and on the 12th of July, the RC boys that I played with used to come with us to see the show and on the 12th of August we went with them. I remember one day, there was a terrible commotion because the Sinners were practising drumming and one fellow broke his drum, it split! And this was away at 11pm on the 11th night so they went ahead and got the drum out of the orange hall and put a sheet over it to cover up the name. However as they were playing it in the middle of the street during the parade, the sheet fell off and there was King William at the Battle of the Boyne!
We all went together. This idea that we were trying to kill each other is not true. Now there were sections of the Roman Catholic Church that were very bitter because of the fact that Ireland was partitioned and they were very wicked. All the days of my life, there has been nothing but killings. But that's finished now, it's all over.
I think probably my father was. All his family were brought up on the Unionist side of the house. It is not true to say that they were always opposed to Roman Catholics though. That is not true. They were certainly opposed to a takeover of their country, but they weren't opposed to individual Roman Catholics.
Well, I would say again probably my dad. [I thought you were going to say your wife Doc!] Oh my wife came in afterwards, I was already 21! What about now? I wouldn't make any changes. The breeding of Protestants and the family of Protestants in NI is very close, as it is also in the Roman Catholic side. Roman Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland are family people.
Well, partly yes. You'll find in any situation that is tight, you're bound to have a person that can carry everybody. It was a matter of agreeing on the principle of democracy, at the end of the day I had to accept that principle and they had to accept it. It didn't really matter whether everybody agreed or not, as long as it was agreed that this was the way forward. They could either sit in the sidelines and curse you or they could come in and help you. It didn't matter, this was the way the engine was going to run and it was going to run irrespective if every Sinn Feiner in the country stood on the railway line to be run over! Every party has the same problem. You can't please everybody all the time.
I was a target. I have a worse record for threats than anyone. My record for threats according to the police is the highest it can be. Some of the highest people have lost their police protection but not me. I will be protected to the grave. I was shot at when I was going to Londonderry and my house was bombed. My wife has been attacked on the streets savagely, they unscrewed the wheels on my son's car and he would have been killed but he had a feeling that something was wrong when he got inside and decided to not to drive. But that to me isn't a problem because long before the IRA gained the strength they once had, there were always threats always about me. Policemen in my garden all my life.
Very good. The Roman Catholic Community know that they've got the best MP in Ireland. I'm not joking, they know I am, they'll tell you that. I work for them all and that's how it should be. Even if you elect an MP and you hate their guts, you have certain responsibilities in Parliament to do what is just and right and that's what I do. I have no bother at all. I would probably be the most popular MP in Northern Ireland, even when I go to the South of Ireland they're all over me. Even during the times of the fiercest conflict with the IRA I've always looked after the Roman Catholic community and their needs.
No, I don't think the IRA or the official IRA or whatever you want to call it, Sinn Fein, are ever going to go back to the days the shooting and killings, when they were being shot and killed...by their own side. The enemy of McGuinness and his men are not the Orange Men or the Unionists, it's their own side, the dissidents, the Real IRA and so on.
Well I am very happy we've made such progress, however I'd like to see more progress especially in the realm of education which is really brought about by the Sinn Fein education minister. Even the Roman Catholic Church has pulled out so she has the whole of her own Church resting against her back and they never needed to have this. We could have been settled, we could all have been having peace for our children. That's what's a tragedy. See, that's all because Sinn Fein weren't prepared to stick in their feet, we'd made an agreement and I mean everybody has to get this into their mind: The only way this country can run under the present system is that everybody from time to time must swallow their pride. They must. I mean you can't get everything but we are making progress, progress that nobody ever thought could be made.
I never think of it. I don't care enough what people think of me. I lived in the era when people thought I was the bad boy. People knew though I wasn't going out shooting with a gun – I was trying to protect them and look after their interests. I've seen some of the worst people converted. One of the top men in the IRA, the man who shot at me on the bridge near the city, I've seen him converted from the Roman Catholic Church. He's going on very well as a Protestant and as a Christian. I believe men's minds can be changed, hearts can be made right, and he was one of them.
I would say stay in Northern Ireland and work for Northern Ireland and help build the bridges that need to be built. Don't leave it to other people and sit from a distance to criticise. It's your country and you should make it into the country that you want it to be. And that is now considerably easier. I don't see young Roman Catholic boys in the street throwing stones at Protestants – that's all over. We shouldn't carry on with that, we should move forward. There are good opportunities in Northern Ireland and there will be more when we get this economic thing sorted.
