'Irish future bright': Paisley

20 Jun 2007, 12:00 am   -   Source: SBS
0 Comments
Share This
+ Comment
0
After decades locked in a bitter and violent struggle, the future of Northern Ireland is finally looking bright, the country’s new First Minister has told Dateline’s George Negus.

After decades locked in a bitter and violent struggle, the future of Northern Ireland is finally looking bright, the country’s new First Minister has told Dateline’s George Negus.

After decades locked in a bitter and violent struggle, the future of Northern Ireland is finally looking bright, the country's new First Minister has told Dateline.

After decades locked in a bitter and violent struggle, the future of Northern Ireland is finally looking bright, the country's new First Minister has told Dateline's George Negus.

Protestant firebrand turned political leader, the Reverend Ian Paisley gained notoriety during the Troubles for his angry rants at the Republican cause.

VIDEO: Preview of interview with Reverand Ian Paisley. Full interview tonight on Dateline.

Years on, he finds himself sitting alongside the bitter rivals he once railed against in the region's devolved parliament, Stormont.

But despite the power-sharing, he still won?t shake hands with his new colleagues, as he showed when he took office in May.

"We still have a way to go," said Mr Paisley, in an interview to be screened on SBS's Dateline on Wednesday night, explaining his decision to publicly snub his deputy, Martin McGuinness.

"We're not at the end of the road and if you get too much encouragement to people, they might think we've got all we want, but we haven't."

The hardline unionist said he was as surprised as many observers that the long-running Northern Ireland conflict appeared to be at an end.

"If you had told me that the Sinn Feinners were prepared to take a pledge of allegiance to the police and courts of the land and feed information to the police force of the country, I would have said, 'Where are you living?'" he said.

"But it has come about and we should be very thankful for it. We're making slow progress but we are making progress and I think that eventually we should attend to a proper democratic system."

Despite the outbreak of peace in the region, Mr Paisley remains highly critical of his 'opponents' on both sides of the Irish Sea.

"The British government was very weak," he told Dateline. "If they had have been stronger we would have got it sooner but I held out and refused to talk with them, refused to negotiate with them."

And he refuses to pull any punches when discussing his Deputy First Minister, former Provisional IRA leader Martin McGuinness.

"He was a terrorist, and he was the commander of terrorists, and of course that is something very sad.

"He's my deputy not by my wish, [but] by the skulduggery of the south and Britain."

McGuinness and Paisley make an unlikely double act, and there is no love lost between the pair, yet both appear determined to get on with the day-to-day business of government.

"We don't have arguments [on a daily basis]. I made it clear to them that if we were going to have arguments every day, you will never do anything."

Mr Paisley said despite the recent thawing of relations on a political scale, it would take longer for some of the province's residents to accept the new entente between once bitter enemies.

"Well of course, people have been slaughtered - you cannot blame them for that - if I had a father murdered or a brother of mine murdered, I would have felt it.

"I salute the loyalist population in being prepared to say, "We are prepared to let bygones be bygones."

"I mean it will never heal the scar or even take away the scar - that will be there, but if we get a period of co-operation I think more and more that the Sinn Fein movement will become just an ordinary political movement."

But he said he was hopeful for the region's future.

"It's sad we had to have all these years of bloodshed and darkness, but on the other hand some of the brightest parts of history have been written up after dark days, and perhaps the brightest part of Irish history is still to be written."

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.