The DUP has finally joined the unionist political establishment after three of its members including Eileen Paisley are this morning appointed to the House of Lords. Former Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble is also appointed a life peer today.
For years DUP leader Ian Paisley and some of his senior lieutenants complained that party members were ostracised from the higher echelons of politics because of their advocacy of militant unionism. Dr Paisley often spoke dismissively of how he was never welcomed into the society of "big house unionism".
But today Dr Paisley, a few days after celebrating his 80th birthday, has the satisfaction of seeing his wife, Eileen, elevated to the House of Lords. Party members joining her on the benches there are DUP chairman Maurice Morrow and Belfast lord mayor Wallace Browne. They are the first DUP members to be appointed to the House of Lords. Nobel Laureate Mr Trimble, who with former SDLP leader John Hume signed the Belfast Agreement eight years ago yesterday, is also one of 23 life peers nominated yesterday by British prime minister Tony Blair.
The four must now go through what one Ulster Unionist described as the rather "arcane" procedure of contacting House of Lords officials to discuss what titles they will take, what titles are available and what titles are permissible.
Former UUP leader James Molyneaux took the title Lord Molyneaux of Killead; former Strangford MP John Taylor became Lord Kilclooney; while the former MP for Fermanagh South-Tyrone took Lord Maginnis of Drumglass. The late co-founder of the SDLP Gerry Fitt, who died last year, adopted the title Lord Fitt of Bell's Hill.
DUP deputy leader Peter Robinson, who welcomed the appointment of the first DUP peers, said it was the first step in redressing DUP under-representation in the House of Lords.
"For years the party was consistently overlooked on the issue of membership of the House of Lords while other parties, many of whom had smaller mandates, had more members in their ranks from the upper house than elected representatives," Mr Robinson said.