ABSTRACT
The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and its founder, the Rev. Ian Paisley, have been controversial throughout Northern Ireland’s Troubles and its current post-conflict transition.1 In 1971 Paisley, then a young firebrand evangelical preacher, founded the party with substantial support from members of the Free Presbyterian Church, which he also had founded. Paisley, his party, and his church were often regarded as prophets of war, not of peace. Around the time of the DUP’s founding, Paisley and other members of the party were accused of shadowy dealings with loyalist paramilitaries. Although Paisley and the party publicly disassociated themselves from loyalist paramilitaries, suspicions about their involvement remained. Further, Paisley’s fiery rhetoric was regarded as inciting paramilitaries to violence. The story of an imprisoned loyalist paramilitary bemoaning the day that he ever listened to ‘that man Paisley’ has become apocryphal. Paisley was once regarded as the politician who would always say ‘no’ to compromise with Irish republicanism, particularly in the guise of Sinn Féin. That has made the DUP’s decision to share power with Sinn Féin in the Northern Ireland Executive all the more stunning. Images of First Minister Paisley laughing and joking with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness of Sinn Féin (who has admitted that he belonged to the Irish Republican Army (IRA)) are amongst the most surprising and iconic of the recent transitional period.
