Sir, – Newton Emerson's reflections on Paisleyism (Opinion, December 1st) were welcome and thought-provoking for the DUP constituency that continues to support an irrelevant and obscure Protestant sect.
However, I think Mr Emerson is too young to remember the real and lasting damage Paisley’s brand of sectarian hatred caused to Ireland in the second half of the 20th century. His anti-Romanism which Emerson now dismisses as an inter-Protestant joke led directly to the revival of the UVF.
Paisley’s hatred of the Roman church was the leading factor in his organisation of the sectarian hatred against the civil rights movement. Without Paisley there would have been no Burntollet attack on the peaceful Peoples Democracy marchers in January 1969; there would have been no sectarian pogroms against Belfast Catholics in August 1969, and there would have been no continued hostility and violence against the North’s nationalist population.
My father Domhnall Mac Dermott, who was a civil-rights activist in Derry and who experienced the Stormont sectarian regime at its worst in the 1950s, told me the only time he ever felt frightened during the Troubles was an evening in November 1968 when Paisley and his followers took over Armagh by force and when the RUC refused to confront a blatant act of illegality. My father who returned to Derry with several leading civil rights campaigners said he had never been so frightened in his life.
I’m sorry Newton: for many northern nationalist, republicans, non-unionists and nonaligned, Paisleyism was a sectarian, hate-filled and anti-Catholic bigoted belief system, not a joking byproduct of unionism’s dysfunctionality. Arlene Foster take note.
– Yours sincerely.
DIARMAID MAC DERMOTT
Stepaside,
Dublin 18.