Word: paisleys
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...months ago the Reverend Ian Paisley, the thunderous, 81-year-old Protestant preacher who leads the unionists, said the IRA's political allies, Sinn Fein, would enter government "over our dead bodies." Paisley is now the First Minister of Northern Ireland, heading the new administration alongside former IRA leader Martin McGuinness. These days he reckons the region is "starting upon the road - I emphasize starting - which I believe will take us to lasting peace...
CONTEXT Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, leaders of Northern Ireland's most hard-line Protestant and Roman Catholic parties, sat side by side for the first time ever and agreed to forge a joint platform for government...
...efforts are complicated by a deadline. The British Government has given the parties until March 26th to strike a deal. If it doesn't happen, they say they will pull the plug on the newly elected Northern Ireland Assembly and start looking at other arrangements for governing the region. Paisley thinks they're bluffing, in part because the deadline is being dictated by Tony Blair's desire to see a decade of effort on Northern Ireland rewarded with a settlement before his impending retirement. British officials tend to think the 80-year-old unionist is the bluffer, believing he wants...
...Still, Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein, the party led by Adams, have broadly indicated they're willing to work together under rigid power-sharing arrangements. That's encouraging since they're expected to run the region together in a matter of weeks. And they need to talk about the details. The DUP wants more assurances that Sinn Fein has left behind their associates in the IRA and will genuinely support Northern Ireland's police. "Sinn Fein are not entitled to be at the table until they declare themselves for democracy," said Paisley. "I'm a democrat...
...March 17). Whether the deadline works or not, senior members of both Sinn Fein and the DUP believe a deal in inevitable. The strange thing is that's because the voters have now cast polarised politics in concrete. The 1998 Good Friday Accord was built around moderate parties, but Paisley and Adams have now eclipsed them - in practical terms, there's no one else to work with. That might not be a great foundation for a functioning government, but if both sides want to win any more elections, it's the only one they...