His enemies have called him "the bloated bullfrog" and "the clergyman in jackboots." But the Rev. I.R.K. (for Ian Richard Kyle) Paisley, leader of Northern Ireland's extremist Protestants, demonstrated last week that his militant anti-Catholicism has strong appeal to his country's rank-and-file Protestant voters. He handily won a seat in Ulster's 52-member Parliament at Stormont, while one of his close colleagues, the Rev. William Beattie, 27, scored an upset in a second by-election.
Since last summer's bloody rioting in Londonderry and Belfast, the Unionist Party government of Prime Minister Major James...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
