biography
| name: |
Paisley, Rev Ian (Richard Kyle)
|
pronunciation:
[payzlee]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1926– )
|
| biography:
| Militant Protestant clergyman and politician, born in Armagh, Co Armagh, SE Northern Ireland, UK. Ordained in 1946, he formed his own Church (the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster) in 1951, and from the 1960s became deeply involved in Ulster politics. He founded the Protestant Unionist Party and stood as its MP for four years until 1974, and has since been the Democratic Unionist MP for North Antrim. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 1970. A rousing orator, he is strongly pro-British, fiercely opposed to the IRA, Roman Catholicism, and the unification of Ireland. In 1998 he was elected to the newly formed Northern Ireland Assembly, but refused to sit in the Assembly when it met in December 1999 and (after it was reconvened) in May 2000. |
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