Northern Ireland: Paisley's Pattern

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For almost a year, Northern Ireland has been rocked by stabbings, shootings, bombings and riots that have left scores injured and three dead. Behind the trouble is a growing tension between Northern Ireland's 1,250,000 Protestants loyal to the Queen and the country's 500,000 Roman Catholics, who want closer ties with the Catholic-dominated Republic of Ireland. Last week Prime Minister Terence O'Neill's government took its first legal action against the man who has stirred up much of the recent trouble. He is big, garrulous Rev. Ian Paisley, 40, leader of Northern Ireland's Free Presbyterian Church.

Religious antagonisms have long been strong in Ireland, especially since 1690, when Britain's "Glorious Revolution" secured Protestant ascendancy to Ulster. To try to ease the old hatreds, Protestant O'Neill broke all precedent last year by inviting the Republic of Ireland's Catholic Premier Sean Lemass to Belfast. It was then that Paisley, fearing a sellout to the Catholics, began stumping Ulster's six counties, attacking everyone from the Pope ("old red socks") to the Archbishop of Canterbury ("another traitor"). "O'Neill might as well try to stop Niagara Falls with a teaspoon." Paisley stormed, "as try to stop our Protestant cause." When Queen Elizabeth arrived in Belfast this month to dedicate a bridge, embittered Catholics promised retaliation; and sure enough, a twelve-pound chunk of concrete came crashing down on her car from a fourth-floor window on her parade route, luckily only denting the hood.

Blaming his fellow Protestants for most of the violence, O'Neill outlawed an anti-Catholic band of hotheads called the Ulster Volunteer Force. Then the government ordered Paisley and six of his cohorts to stand trial on charges of unlawful assembly and inciting a riot last month in Belfast. Last week Paisley and five of his six companions were found guilty, ordered to pay a £30 ($84) fine and to promise to keep the peace for two years. When Paisley refused, he was ordered imprisoned for three months.

"The latter-day Rome," Paisley sneered to his followers before marching off to the jail, "once again dips her hands in the blood of saints, and is drunk with the blood of saints." The saint would return, Paisley promised, and even run for Parliament. Within hours, fresh signs blossomed on buildings and sidewalks: "Paisley for Prime Minister." And by week's end, angry mobs of Protestants had taken to the streets, smashing windows, overturning cars, and battling police.