Paisley, Revd Ian Richard Kyle

Paisley, Revd Ian Richard Kyle (b. 6 Apr. 1926). Northern Irish politician Born in Armagh, he was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1946, and established the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in 1951. From the mid-1960s he was the most prominent Unionist opponent of concessions to Catholics, and of any weakening of Northern Ireland's position in the UK. He was first imprisoned in 1968 for ‘unlawful assembly’, and in 1969 he led the Protestant Unionist Party, a breakaway from the Ulster Unionist Party. In 1970 he was elected to both the Stormont and Westminster Parliaments, and in 1971 he founded the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). He represented the DUP in the Northern Ireland Assembly (1973–5), but consistently opposed power-sharing. In 1979 he was elected to the European Parliament. He vociferously opposed any attempt to solve the problems of Northern Ireland through closer involvement, or even consultation, with ‘Popish’ (i.e. Roman Catholic) southern Ireland. This was the basis for his opposition to the 1993 Downing Street Declaration, as well as the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.