Paisley recalls telling Mammy: 'That lady can sing'

The Rev Ian Paisley, standing on the bottom of the steps of the grand hall in Parliament Buildings, Stormont last night, cast his mind back 37 years and recalled listening to Dana "on the wireless" in the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest.

"I said to my Mammy: Mammy, that lady can sing," said Dr Paisley, delighted to be launching Dana Rosemary Scallon's autobiography titled, obviously, All Kinds of Everything.

They may be of different faiths but Dr Paisley characterised Dana as a kindred Christian for her stance on abortion, and her courage in promoting Christian beliefs.

The First Minister said he never dreamed that a generation and much more from 1970 he would be standing in Stormont promoting her autobiography.

There's a lot happening in Northern Ireland that a lot of people never dreamed of, and each day Dr Paisley seems to be central to that new cheering but mind-boggling reality.

So a Protestant evangelical politician and former MEP who can sing a hymn when called upon, standing up for a Catholic evangelical former politician and MEP, with a reputation for warbling a tune or two, was hardly that surprising in the new Northern Ireland.

The North is pretty peaceful these days but such was the commotion in the grand hall of Parliament Buildings that for a moment or two last night there was a worry it might get riotously out of hand.

It was an all kinds of everything gathering for sure: politicians, a retired bishop, Protestant and Catholic clerics, showbiz types, a former taoiseach, a Nobel laureate, and busloads from Derry crammed the hall, many of them jostling for a good vantage point to see proceedings or snap a memory. You needed strong shoulders in the hall last night.

On the rostrum beside and behind Dr Paisley and Dana, both wearing their Remembrance Day poppies, it was also a disparate crew.

You had former taoiseach Albert Reynolds meeting Dr Paisley for the first time, both of them engaging in boisterous banter. John Hume was there as well, and Baroness Paisley - or "Mammy" (the new Mammy), as Dr Paisley calls her - and not to be excluded, the Derry Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness.

Also in the throng were the former Bishop of Derry Edward Daly, the comedian Frank Carson, the Co Down SDLP Minister Margaret Ritchie, that other famous Euro singer Johnny Logan, the great former Derry pro-boxer Charlie Nash, and the Derry broadcaster Gerry Anderson.

Notice how often the word "Derry" turns up in this report. The Maiden City stands by its own.

"I think that we are proud, no matter what part of Northern Ireland or Southern Ireland we come from, that she is a person from this island and part of ourselves, and we hail her as a woman supreme," said Dr Paisley.