OPINIONIan Paisley has been an enormous presence on the Irish political landscape, North and South, for almost half a century. Bigot and firebrand preacher, street politics demagogue and accomplished parliamentarian on this island, in Westminster and at the European Parliament, and, ultimately, Ulster unionist compromiser with militant Irish republicanism. Irish Timesjournalists asked a cross section of people how they thought he would be remembered
David Trimble
Northern Ireland first minister, 1998 to 2001
One thing we can be sure of is that without Ian Paisley, there would have been a political settlement in Northern Ireland a generation earlier. And if Tony Blair had kept his promises to me at the time of the Good Friday Agreement, his (Paisley's) political demise would have come a decade ago.
Séamus Mallon
Deputy first minister to David Trimble
Ian Paisley was a person who always had an obsession with absolute power, and yet at the same time, always felt himself to be outside the pale. The paradox is that it was the Good Friday Agreement, which he set out to destroy, that allowed him to be inside in terms of influence for the first time in his whole political career.
Yes, he brought unionism into a powersharing arrangement with Sinn Féin, but to do that he had to destroy, as he had destroyed Terence O'Neill, as he destroyed Faulkner, as he destroyed Chichester Clarke - he had to destroy the unionist leader David Trimble. It tells you about the paradox of all this, that the creativity which he undoubtedly gave the political process in Northern Ireland in his later years was achieved as a result of the destructive element in his approach to politics and this type of political atavism which demanded absolute and total power.
Tony Blair
Former British prime minister
Ian Paisley's contribution to peace, after all the years of division and difference, was decisive and determinative. In short, in the final analysis, he made it happen. The man famous for saying No will go down in history for saying Yes. He did so personally convinced it was right and in reaching that conviction, consigning to the past the feelings he once so trenchantly articulated.
Conor O'Clery
Northern Editor of The Irish Times from 1973 to 1976
I saw the two sides of the Rev Ian Paisley when reporting Northern Ireland. Once when I was the only journalist at a loyalist election meeting in a hall in Carryduff, Co Down, Paisley drew the audience's attention to my presence in menacing tones, whereupon I got a few digs in the back. But then he thundered, "I want to know, where's the Belfast Telegraph? Where's the BBC? I say, fair play to the man from The Irish Timesfor coming to hear what we have to say."
After that people called out to me: "Good man yourself!"
A couple of years later I accompanied a DUP delegation on the first visit of the party to the European Commission in Brussels, on condition I didn't report any confidences. When the agriculture commissioner told them that subsidies for apple growing were higher in the Republic than in Northern Ireland, Cllr Douglas Hutchinson of Armagh said to his colleagues: "We're living on the wrong side of the Border."
Paisley turned to me and said: "Don't you print that!" But he was laughing along with everyone else.
Trevor Ringland
Former Ireland rugby international and head of the anti-sectarian One Small Step campaign
I have very, very strong views on his influence on this island in the past. But what happened, happened, and we have to try to work through the consequences of that, and seize the opportunity that we have created to make sure we don't repeat the past. In that respect, and in focusing on the future I have to welcome Ian Paisley's action in the past 12 months. I believe that Ian Paisley in stepping away from politics frees up the future for unionism. And some individuals or organisations in nationalism and unionism might want to consider doing the same thing.
Ruairi Ó Brádaigh
Former chief of staff of the IRA and currently president of Republican Sinn Féin
The great unanswered question before history is why did not Paisley, on the one hand, and the present Provo leadership, on the other, accept and work the Sunningdale agreement of 1973 which offered more and for which less was to be paid than the 1998 Belfast Agreement? Did we, as a people, have to endure 25 years more of sacrifice and suffering until both elements were poised to divide the major share of the spoils of office between them?
Ed Moloney
Journalist and author of Paisley: From Demagogue to Democrat?
I think history will give him very mixed reviews. There's the early period as street preacher - all the fire and brimstone stuff - which many people believe lit the fuse for what followed.
Then there's the end period for which people laud him because he went into government with Sinn Féin and brought the peace process to a successful conclusion. As to why he did that, I think it was a case of seizing the moment to extract sweet revenge on all his enemies in Protestantism, the Orange Order and unionism. After all his battles with them, he and not them finished top of the heap.
Eamonn McCann
Derry-based civil rights activist and socialist
Paisley's most significant function was to identify the cause of Ulster with the cause of Protestantism. That meant that to give a concession to nationalists was to go against God. He objected with religious fervour to civil rights and that had an effect arguably right up to the present day.
Jim Allister
MEP who quit the DUP when Paisley entered government with Sinn Féin
For a man who is likely to go down in history as a towering, unbending, traditional unionist, he in fact crashed at the end of his career into someone who betrayed most of what he stood for and left us with the appalling legacy of unrepentant terrorists at the heart of government - a party with a wicked army council, that still has a military wing which kills, as in the case of Paul Quinn. That is a legacy that no democrat nor unionist could or should take any pride in. His U-turn is due to one small word - ego.
Willie Frazer
Organiser of Families Acting for Innocent Relatives - a group supporting IRA victims in south Armagh
The one thing that we would find as victims is that he was the man who came into our homes and said that we needed to stand firm, that people in the Border areas needed to stand firm. That they did and paid a heavy price for it. Then we had the Sunningdale agreement in 1974, for the life of us what was so wrong with that agreement whenever they went for the St Andrews agreement? That has left many of our people hurt. They believe that at the very least Paisley owes them an answer.
Albert Reynolds
Taoiseach 1992-1994
When I became Taoiseach I asked a good contact of mine in the North who knew Mr Paisley whether he thought the DUP leader would ever be prepared to do a political deal. His response was: "Paisley won't move until he becomes number one." That assessment has been proved absolutely right.
Obviously Mr Paisley made up his mind at an early stage that his objective was to become number one and he pursued that goal throughout his political life. He made himself indispensable as the one man that could deliver on a settlement. Others might be able to do a deal but he was the only one that had the power to deliver . . . The Ulster Unionists were able to negotiate a deal but they could not deliver and blew their chance. When Mr Paisley achieved the dominant position in unionism he did the deal and delivered on it. I wish him well in his retirement and thank him and Martin McGuinness for peace in Ireland.
John Bruton
Taoiseach 1994-1997
It was very important for the durability of the arrangements in Northern Ireland that Ian Paisley achieved the position of first minister. His doing so gave the new dispensation maximum credibility and authority among a community without whose acceptance it might not have become sufficiently embedded to endure. As a politician, he was personally compassionate even when politically intransigent. He has a good sense of fun which often mitigated the hardness of some of his policy positions. Recently in Washington, I was struck by the ease and mutual understanding between himself and Martin McGuinness.