Whatever the precise origins of the affliction that has finally propelled Northern Ireland’s Rev Ian Paisley into the Great Beyond, certain symptoms were abundantly conspicuous: among them, roarings and clenchings and a copious discharge of epithets colourful, caustic, calumniatory. To call him God’s most execrative expectorator-on-earth is not to yield to hyperbole.
“Vomit-eating dog!” is one of the phrases that bolted from his unquiet mouth at the drop of a hat or a Latin noun or a Gaelic expletive. “Skulking cowards!” and “milk-and-water, spineless, soft-tongued, velvet-gloved pussyfoots!” would tumble out, perhaps as afterthoughts. They were among his milder remonstrances, and were aimed, for example, at fellow Presbyterians who had somehow offended him. The most pungent denunciations were directed at the Roman Catholic Church and any object or person, living or dead, exuding “a whiff of popery”. His Free Presbyterian Church surpassed other Christian denominations in using religion as a physical weapon, a distinction which inspired his disciples to find stones in sermons and to cast them lustily. Thus were enemies belaboured on street corners, pulpits and in the Northern Ireland parliament which the preacher would come to dominate as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party.
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