Paisley rushed to hospital with respiratory problems

I understand that members of Ian Paisley’s family are with him and he is currently in intensive care. Dr Paisley had a history of heart trouble and though he has not, I understand, suffered a heart attack, he was rushed to hospital with respiratory problems.

It was a previous brush with death that Tony Blair was convinced played a big part in the conversion of Ian Paisley from wrecker to participant in a peace process he did everything in his power for decades to destroy. In his memoirs, Tony Blair writes of how Ian Paisley “had a sense of impending mortality” after “a long and debilitating illness” (also, I understand, heart-related).

Tony Blair thought Ian Paisley’s was a conversion driven by a shift in public opinion. The outcome was that no sooner had he uttered the old line, that the the IRA would enter government “over our dead bodies” (August 2006), than he was in office with them (May 2007).

I once asked him if he owed David Trimble and others who he had for years ruthlessly insulted, an apology as they seemed to have spotted something he hadn’t, the capacity of republicanism to change. This brought a fiery reaction, a glimmer of the old beast and a flash of anger.

There was some of the old fire and brimstone talk on display 10 days ago when he gave his last sermon at his church before taking retirement. One who was there said he preached of eternal darkness and the terrors of hell… the old-time religion still blasting, even though the old-time politics had been modified.