Episode 2 Paisley: Genesis to Revelation - Face to Face with Eamonn Mallie

Ian Paisley's been a public figure for over 60 years.

For most of that time, he was an outsider,

denouncing his many opponents.

But all that changed in 2007,

when he became First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Why did the man who promised to smash Sinn Fein

go into government with his former enemies?

And what price did he ultimately pay?

For the first time,

Ian Paisley reveals the dramatic circumstances

in which he ceased to be First Minister,

leader of the Democratic Unionist Party,

Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church,

and minister of Martyrs Memorial Church.

There was a beast here who was prepared to go forward

in...to the destruction of the party.

Did they want Martin McGuinness and him

to come on fighting one another and shouting at one another?

And I think instead of castigating them, they should've been commended.

If they wanted to put me on trial, why did they not put me on trial?

Why did they not bring charges?

They assassinated him by their words and by their deeds.

I think they treated him shamefully.

If I had have said I would resign immediately,

they would've broken up the Church that night,

and they would've announced to the world

that the Paisley leadership was finished

and the Free Presbyterian Church was under new management.

Ian Paisley's wife Eileen has been a major influence

throughout his turbulent career.

-In 1950, you meet Eileen Cassells.

-Yes.

Tell me about this lady,

what was so special about Eileen Cassells,

-who became your wife?

-She was a bully!

HE LAUGHS

She just bullied me,

and I just had to collapse, and I...

had to pull down any opposition and say, "yes".

Give me your earliest recollection, the very first time

you clapped your eye on the young Paisley, how did he strike you?

He had always a twinkle

and a brightness about him. And...

-Was he a bit of a flirt?

-No, no, no, he wasn't a flirt.

Oh, no, but he was just a bright...

He had a bright personality and he was very personable.

What about his preaching, was that

important to you as a young woman?

Yes, yes, my parents were on holidays and my brother said to me,

"What about going down to hear Ian Paisley?"

And I said, "Well, OK, I'll come with you."

So that was the first time I heard Ian preach, and it was amazing.

I fell for her immediately and scraped my knees.

I went down with a plump!

Of course, she has been my right-hand person all the days of my life.

-NEWS REPORTER:

-Three o'clock this afternoon in Room 21

at Parliament Buildings, Stormont...

Ian Paisley aggressively resisted the David Trimble-led

power-sharing administration established in 1999.

However, the DUP leader kept the door open to power

by nominating Nigel Dodds and Peter Robinson as ministers.

But the party chose to boycott all meetings of the Executive,

refusing to cooperate with Sinn Fein.

The fledgling administration staggered from crisis to crisis,

with the question of IRA guns

hobbling the Ulster Unionist First Minister at every turn.

The IRA's delay in decommissioning

its weapons not only eroded

David Trimble's authority in his own party, but rendered him

an easy target for Ian Paisley, who repeatedly held them up to ridicule.

-TRIMBLE: Stop running!

-You're yesterday's man, David.

-Stop running.

-You're finished.

-Stop running.

-You're a failure.

DAVID TRIMBLE LAUGHS

SEVERAL VOICES: # Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio!

# Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio-oh! #

Why were you so against David Trimble as First Minister now

and his administration at Parliament Buildings,

an administration which involved members of the Republican movement?

Well, I think you should ask the members of his own party

-why they were against him.

-But what was troubling you?

Yes, what was troubling me was that his slate was not clean.

-On what issue?

-On all the issues.

-What were the issues concerning you?

-He was a weakling.

-What were the issues?

-Well, the issues were the fact that

known members of the IRA,

who were also sitting in the House,

could take part and could be even appointed to office.

But what was wrong with that? They were elected.

You were a democrat, what was wrong with that?

Well, I am totally opposed to gunmen, who had not given up their weaponry,

to be able to sit in the Cabinet and to rule the country.

It's... It's madness.

Soon, David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party

was losing ground to the DUP.

Firstly in Westminster elections, then, more importantly,

in Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

In 2003, the DUP emerged as the biggest party.

Support for Sinn Fein also increased at the expense of the SDLP,

with Gerry Adams and his colleagues

becoming the leading nationalist party.

Sinn Fein concluded David Trimble was now a lame-duck leader,

and was entertaining the previously unthinkable -

a deal with Ian Paisley.

# His truth at all times firmly stood... #

The penny was beginning to drop in London and Dublin.

Ian Paisley could no longer be ignored.

'The result of those elections'

put us into a place where both Sinn Fein and the unions

had to face up to it.

I mean, there was no turning back. And if we had turned back...

..God help this country and what it would have come to.

Unknown to the outside world,

a new reality was dawning in the Paisley household.

Sinn Fein, electorally, was not going away.

Eileen Paisley's views would heavily influence her husband

over the coming years.

Were you in any sense trying to persuade your husband

to try and find a reach and accommodation with Republicans

to make sure that we didn't have the ongoing 30 years,

another 30 years of violence?

Yes, we discussed it.

We discussed it, we prayed about it, we talked round it and through it

and in and out about how we could lose friends, and probably would.

But we thought that the country has come through such a terrible time

and people from right across the board have been hurt

and damaged beyond all description and we can't continue that,

and unless an accommodation had been reached,

it would have been another 30 or 40 years,

and maybe it would've been worse.

The whole country would've been on fire.

London and Dublin stepped up their courtship

of the Democratic Unionist Party.

This ultimately led to all-party intergovernmental talks

at Leeds Castle in the autumn of 2004.

This was an attempt to stabilise the ongoing pattern

of stop-start devolution, with IRA guns topping the agenda.

It was Tony Blair's first real opportunity

to gauge Ian Paisley's willingness

to contemplate government with the Republicans.

The Prime Minister's Protestant roots in Donegal

helped cement a friendship.

Their interest in religion was a common bond.

We CAN resolve the issue of paramilitary activity

and an end to all violence...

How much time did you devote to talking religion with

-Tony Blair at Leeds Castle?

-Oh, a good deal of time.

-Why was that?

Well, it was matters that were brought up and matters about his...

his grandfather being an Orangeman

and his grandmother

was a very, very, strong supporter of mine.

Was she a Paisleyite?

She was, she said to him, "You don't do anything on Ian Paisley

"because it'll be very unlucky for you if you do."

Now, did Mr Blair tell you a story about his granny's comments to him

-as she was ailing and advancing in years...

-Yes.

..about getting married to a Catholic,

-and the danger of getting married to a Catholic?

-Yes.

-What did he say?

He said that she said, "Son, you must never marry a Roman Catholic.

"And you must never join the Roman Catholic Church."

And, of course, he dutifully disobeyed her

-and married Cherie, a Catholic.

-That's right, yes.

Can you just tell me about the day that he told you

he was going to become a Catholic?

Well, I used to meet him in this private room,

not so much in his office, and, er, he says,

"Look, I'm going downstairs now." And he says,

"I'll let you out the back door and you can get away quick."

And I said, "That's all right."

And as we were walking down the stairs,

he stopped, and he looked back at me.

And he says, "Ian, there's something I need to tell you.

"When the hands of that clock..." -

and he pointed to a big clock that was on the wall -

"..when they come to eight o'clock,

"I will be a Roman Catholic."

And he said, "I didn't want you to leave without telling you,

"I'd rather tell you myself."

And I said, "You're a fool."

And I walked home.

If one of your family members had come home one day with a Catholic,

-how would you have felt?

-I'd have bought...

I would have bought a long cane

and given him a few strokes with it! HE LAUGHS

No, I would have said,

"Let us sit down and let us ask God his opinion on this."

And I would have said...

"Although you'll hurt me doing what you're doing, you're my child,

"and my love is greater than my hurt."

And they could come in and out of this house as they would.

They would not have been put out by me or my wife either.

We wouldn't have liked it, but we'd have lumped it, we would lump it.

Ian Paisley struck an optimistic note

at the end of the Leeds Castle talks.

Decommissioning of all IRA weapons

and dismantling of the structures of terrorism

is the ultimate outcome of this process.

But this optimism was short-lived.

During the all-party talks,

he demanded to have his own witness present

to oversee IRA decommissioning.

He also insisted on photographic evidence

to prove that the guns had been destroyed.

But a speech delivered by the DUP leader

in his home town of Ballymena that autumn

rang alarm bells in Dublin and London,

when he spelled out that the IRA

would have to wear sackcloth and ashes.

In other words, publicly repent.

The IRA needs to be humiliated.

And they need to wear their sackcloth and ashes

not in a back room, but openly.

If you were so optimistic leaving Leeds Castle that potentially,

there could be peace, why then, come September-November,

did you introduce this whole idea of the IRA

having to wear sackcloth and ashes?

They had to repent and they had to ask forgiveness of the people

for the awful state that they had brought Northern Ireland into.

It is quite in keeping with what a gospel preacher would say,

that if you're going to repent,

you need to do it in sackcloth and ashes.

It's a scriptural statement.

Two events threatened to derail the peace process.

In December 2004, the IRA robbed the Northern Bank of £26 million.

Then less than a month later, Republicans murdered

Robert McCartney, a Catholic, outside a Belfast pub.

But Ian Paisley was not deterred.

The IRA finally addressed the guns issue in September of that year.

This was confirmed by General John de Chastelain,

of the International Decommissioning Body.

We are satisfied that the arms decommission

represent the totality of the IRA's arsenal.

Inexplicably, Ian Paisley ceased demanding photographic evidence

that the weapons had been destroyed.

The two churchmen who had witnessed the process -

a Methodist minister, Harold Good,

and a Catholic priest,

Father Alec Reid of Clonard monastery -

went to see the DUP leader at his office at Parliament Buildings.

Father Reid gave Ian Paisley the comfort he sought.

He was very, very open with me

and, of course, I had known of him as, er,

I went up to the Roman Catholic church

that he belonged to and had debates, you know, there,

when they had their special times to meet Protestants.

He was very open, very open,

and he, er...

I said, "Well, if you are saying to me

"that you're guaranteeing this, then I can at least say I accept that

"and I will take it as you have said to me.

"And, of course, that helps the situation."

Washington's interest in Northern Ireland was now being stepped up,

with President George Bush regularly in touch with

Ian Paisley and other party leaders.

You get a deal done, in other words,

you close the agreement that they've been working on for quite a while.

Even with the IRA's guns off the table,

Ian Paisley was still adamant that

he could not go into government with Sinn Fein

unless Republicans backed the rule of law

and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

All roads were now leading to St Andrews in Scotland

for hothouse talks involving the British and Irish governments

and the political parties, to resolve the outstanding issues.

As these talks ended, the DUP leader said,

"I trust that we will see in the coming days

"the vast majority of people taking the road of democracy."

As Sinn Fein had promised Ian Paisley,

they held a special conference in the New Year

to vote on support for the police.

He was now preparing himself to go into government

with his arch enemies of more than 30 years.

There was no more talk of smashing Sinn Fein.

You went into administration power sharing with Sinn Fein,

former arch enemies, deemed by your party to be murderers.

Well, this was what we had to look at and accept

if we were going to have any say at all in the rule of our country,

and, er, if you can't get everything, you can get something.

And the something that we got was at least a step in the right direction.

'It was at this point in our conversation that Ian Paisley

'declared that he wanted to read a statement.'

PAISLEY CLEARS THROAT

"Over and over again...

"..coming up in this interview and other interviews,

"we have the words, "the deal".

"And I think that...

"having listened to the various definitions

"made of the deal by others, it's time that

"I had the opportunity just to say exactly what this deal was about.

"They did deal with their weapons,

"and they did accept the principle of consent.

"I needed Republicans to accept the PSNI

"and the rule of law in Northern Ireland.

"I was told this never could happen.

"And my response was, unless it did,

"we would never be able to move forward.

"It did happen.

"I had to put my best foot forward.

"I had to put a smile on my face and do what I was elected to do.

"Give leadership."

Many people out there say that you were looking after your legacy,

that your legacy was a big issue, and that, ultimately,

decided for you that you wanted to be First Minister

and to become First Minister, you had to bite the bullet

and go into government with Sinn Fein. True or false?

-Was it your legacy?

-Oh, no, not at all.

I'd, erm...

My work was as a Christian minister and that has always come first.

'I had to take a step,

'a step that I had'

a lot of heart searching on,

a step that brought me a lot of pain,

a step that had to put me

out of the class of a coward,

into the class of a man

that was prepared to sell

himself and his reputation

for the sake of his country.

What did you actually mean when you said you had to sell yourself,

you had to do that deal?

Well, I had to sell myself to a lot of criticism of people

who didn't know what was really happening,

and it meant I was blamed for being a Lundy and all sorts of things.

But, er, when I look back, you know,

he that laughs last laughs the longest.

It was a very, very big step to take,

and it seemed to some people who couldn't understand,

it just seemed to them

that he was going back on everything that he had said.

But the situation was different, the situation had changed.

Sinn Fein had given up their arms and their Semtex,

and they, erm...

whenever Ian asked them,

after some difficulties, of course,

they did sign up to the three principles that he asked of them

and demanded of them. Otherwise, it wouldn't have happened.

The Paisley family privately acknowledge

that they always expected they would pay a price

for doing a deal with Sinn Fein.

The first casualty was Ian Paisley's lifelong friendship

with the eminent QC Desmond Boal.

A founding member of the Democratic Unionist Party

and close confidante of the leader,

he had been part of the lives of the Paisley family for over 40 years.

The bell went and I answered...

The bell at the gate went and I answered it,

and I went and waited at the door for him coming,

and he came up with books that Ian had given him

and he said to me, "This isn't a friendly visit."

He said, "I just can't believe he has done what he has done,"

and he says, "I don't want anything more to do with you."

So I says, "Well...

"Desmond," I said, "I'm very sorry it has to come to that."

But I says, "Ian had to do...

"He was... What could he do?

"Would you have him be responsible for another 30 or 40 years

"of warfare and devastation and killing and murdering,

"or do what he did?"

And he didn't... I don't think he answered me, he just walked away.

How big a blow was that to Mr Paisley?

His lifelong friend, his confidante,

his legal advisor in so many circumstances.

It was a very big blow to him. A very big blow.

And we do miss him and we miss his...

He was a great character and it was great fun,

a lovely person to come in and have as a friend,

and we had a very close friendship.

Storm clouds were gathering

inside Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church.

The idea of its moderator,

a post held by Ian Paisley for more than half a century,

going into a power-sharing executive with Sinn Fein,

was repugnant to some.

Well, I wonder why people hate me, cos I'm such a nice man...

His intention to continue as the leader of the church

while serving as First Minister, alongside Martin McGuinness,

a former IRA commander, was now the subject of heated debate

at presbytery meetings in the spring of 2007.

Were you aware that storms might be about to break

in your church at that point in time?

There's nothing easy in politics,

and there's nothing easy in the politics of Northern Ireland.

I mean, you've got to take it. And I believe, here and there,

we have good fruit coming from that.

What do you say to the people who accused you,

by going into an administration,

a power-sharing administration with Republicans,

that at the end of the day, you chose politics and power over God?

I, er, don't accept that at all.

And, er...

I regret that they have not the ear of God on this matter.

I don't see them crowding into their prayer meetings,

I don't see them taking the matter in prayer,

but they can pour all their fury on me.

And I am broad enough in the shoulders,

and my stomach is strong enough,

to take all of the condemnations they want.

And part of it, of course, is sour, sour grapes.

Leading the charge at Free Presbyterian meetings

against its moderator's move into government with Sinn Fein

was the Reverend Ivan Foster.

He had been at Ian Paisley's side

throughout the years of religious and political protest.

Within weeks of St Andrews,

Mr Foster led a church delegation to Stormont

to confront Ian Paisley about his twin roles

as First Minister and Moderator.

He was now regularly challenging his leader,

using his website to warn against any compromise.

One so highly esteemed

and loved as Ian Paisley

in political coalition with Martin McGuinness...

I would say is probably heartbreaking to most,

if not every Free Presbyterian.

Mr Paisley, three weeks after St Andrews,

an unofficial delegation from the Free Presbyterian Church

-turned up on your doorstep at Parliament Buildings.

-Yes.

What did Ivan Foster and his colleagues

actually say to you at that meeting?

Well, they talked about the moderatorship of the church

and, er, they wanted to say to me,

"You can't be Moderator of the Church and be the leader in this movement."

And, of course, they had no right to say that to anybody.

This is a free country

and people have a right to go the way they should go.

The campaign of opposition to Ian Paisley's dual role came to a head

in September 2007 at the annual general meeting

of the church's presbytery in Martyr's Memorial.

It was at that meeting each year that the moderator was elected.

For 50 years, Ian Paisley's leadership had gone unchallenged.

Even though he'd met with some hostility

at a number of presbytery meetings,

his family did not believe that his moderatorship

was under any serious threat.

The conflict among Free Presbyterians

would effectively split the Church that night.

Were you encouraging him to stand his ground

and to hold onto his position as Moderator?

Yes, I did, of course,

because there was no reason why he should stand down.

He was doing a good job and had done all his life,

and, er, there was nothing to stop him continuing with that

and, er, continuing with his position as First Minister.

But the poison had been led and spread,

and I think that was the damage that had been done.

Your son Kyle, who's a member of the presbytery

and a Free Presbyterian Church minister, told me that you said

that night before going to the presbytery meeting

in the Martyr's Memorial, "I never thought in all my life

"I would be attending a meeting of this kind."

-Yes.

-What did you mean by that?

Well, I mean, it was completely out of order to discuss

the moderatorship in the way it was discussed, and without giving

every member of the presbytery an opportunity to be there.

You offered to resign, Mr Paisley,

as Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church

during that meeting. Why did you offer to resign?

Because I wasn't... I was not going to, er, in any way, er,

destroy the testimony of the Church.

I wasn't going to stand in the way of people,

but if I hadn't a solid foundation,

the work of the Lord was going to be hindered.

And I was not a hinderer.

And I wanted to show people...

it's not the office that the man holds that's important,

it is the spirit in which he holds it.

Kyle also said of the whole church experience,

as he watched and observed what had happened, he said,

"It was like a knife going through you.

"The family just felt as if we had all been stabbed.

"They seemed to have done it with such consummate ease.

"We were definitely let down and betrayed." The words of your son.

-Yes.

-Is that an accurate assessment?

-Yes, it is an accurate assessment.

Why should people that the Free Presbyterian Church took

and trained and built churches for,

why should they be turned on by those people? Because those people

had only one thing to serve, and that was their own ego.

Why did you not resign immediately, though?

Why did you say that you would go in January?

Because if I had said I would resign immediately,

they would have broken up the Church that night.

And they would have put in their own band of leaders

and would have announced to the world

that the Paisley leadership was finished

and the Free Presbyterian Church was under new management.

Was it a case, then, of your not wanting to be seen

to have been drummed out as Moderator by the Church,

that you wanted to pick your own time when you would go?

But I wasn't drummed out. I won the vote.

The vote, I won the vote. I could have...

I could have stood up at that meeting and said, "Now you've got the vote,

"you fellas will have to come into line or you'll have to go,"

but I didn't do that because that's not the way you do the work of God.

And if that means that I should be kicked in the gutter,

then kick me in the gutter.

If that means that I should be chased out of the Church,

and that I should be rejected as a reject, well, I have to bear that.

That's part of the cross.

On that particular night in the Martyrs Memorial Church grounds,

inside and outside, grown men ended up crying.

Talk to me about the atmosphere

in the aftermath of the Presbytery meeting that night.

Well, people were very, very upset.

The hardened ones, as I call them, among them,

the ones who would have been anti-agreement

and anti...coming to any peace...

they just went out

and some of them, most of them didn't stay for supper.

And the other ones who did stay,

I don't know how many of those men shook hands with me,

and many of them hugged me. And the tears were running down their faces,

and that touched me deeply

that there were people who felt very strongly, you know,

that it had been unjust,

the judgements of Ivan and the people who supported him was unjust.

Mr Paisley, your son Kyle, speaking of that night and what happened,

spoke the following words.

"Some of what was said was pure sectarianism,

"and some Protestants only wanted a military defeat of Republicans."

Do you accept that as to be accurate?

Yes. I mean, there are people

and all they wanted was the defeat of the IRA and that was it,

and the Protestants who were killing and bombing as well,

they are forgotten about.

I mean, let's be absolutely honest,

what should happen is law that every person is subjected to.

Our hearts were all broken for Ian,

the children and...myself as well.

I felt he had been deeply wounded in the house of his friends,

and I just felt that it was really iniquitous of them

and a really dreadful, hurtful,

nasty, ungodly, un-Christian thing to do.

You did say, "We were not defeated by our enemies,

"but betrayed by our friends."

Is that how you felt against the backdrop of what happened

-to your husband in the church?

-Yes.

-In his own church?

Yes, that puts it into exact...

In one sentence, that sums it up.

With Ian Paisley and the DUP now in government with Sinn Fein,

some party members were far from happy.

The leadership in the spring of that year faced considerable opposition

and heckling at party meetings.

Significantly, no annual conference was held in 2007.

Ian Paisley was now into his 80s and Peter Robinson,

his right-hand man and heir apparent for over 30 years,

was not getting any younger either.

The Paisley family was aware of the prevailing winds within the DUP.

By now, the so-called men in grey suits,

senior figures in the upper echelons of the DUP,

were huddling in corners inside and outside Parliament Buildings

with a single goal - arranging Ian Paisley's departure.

Did it occur to you as a family,

now that the Church had more or less killed off your husband,

that potentially, a political heave might be in the offing

along the same lines?

I detected a nasty spirit arising from some of the other MPs

and in the way they spoke to Ian. I was very annoyed one day

with the way some of them spoke to him and addressed him.

Whenever they said something to him about what was going on

and he said, "Well, that's what should be done,"

and they said, "Ach, Doc!"

You know, just sort of, "Don't be so stupid." You know?

That sort of set the alarm bells ringing in my head

that there was an undergoing current,

that balls were being made and somebody,

these men were doing the firing of them.

Despite being forced to relinquish

his moderatorship of the Free Presbyterian Church,

Ian Paisley appeared to be relishing his role as First Minister

at home and abroad.

He was regularly seen in public and private

laughing and enjoying the company

of the Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness.

Nothing could have prepared him, however, for what was to come next.

Ian Paisley told me his special adviser, Timothy Johnston,

had handed him a document, which has remained secret until now.

It was labelled "Strictly Private And Confidential".

This document, with Timothy Johnston's name attached to it,

contained seven questions

which had apparently been put to DUP Assembly members,

complete with detailed responses.

Five of the questions within this so-called attitude survey

addressed Ian Paisley's continued leadership.

I have a copy of Timothy Johnston's survey here in my hand.

Among the key findings of the survey, there was talk of

your not being across details

and not being capable of doing the job,

your judgement being questionable,

for example, your association with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

The survey speaks of

your poor performance at First Minister's Question Time.

The survey also challenges your ability to think on your feet

and talks of "Chuckle Brothers" behaviour with Martin McGuinness.

Wasn't that a pretty vicious assault on you as a person

and on your leadership of the party and as First Minister?

If they wanted to put me on trial, why did they not put me on trial?

Why did they not bring charges?

You'd think if it was so bad that these people were so worried,

they would have taken the opportunity to get a meeting together

that would have had the power to say to me, "Get out, or stay in."

And, of course, that never was done.

Five of the seven questions asked in the Timothy Johnston survey

relate directly to your leadership.

-Yes.

-Question three of the survey reads as follows...

"How well do you think Dr Paisley has been performing over the last year?"

Question four reads,

"What are the issues that concern you most about Dr Paisley's performance?"

Mr Paisley, did you ask Timothy Johnston for an analysis of

-your leadership when you asked him to complete a document for you?

-No.

So are you saying, Mr Paisley,

that you did not ask Timothy Johnston to conduct any survey

about your stepping down as First Minister or as party leader?

No. I asked him to give me a general view of the party,

and its thinking at that present time.

Timothy Johnston says

the survey was carried out at Ian Paisley's specific request

and he rejects any suggestion that it had been framed

with the intention of bringing about

his party leader's removal.

Mr Paisley, the survey also showed that 83% of the MLAs

believed that you ought to retire as leader and First Minister in 2008.

And some even feared that you must...

"go soon or the party will disintegrate"

and the party situation "will not be retrievable".

-Was there any validity attaching to that statement?

-None whatsoever.

So what was it all about?

Getting rid of Ian Paisley.

In whose interest?

The interests of the people who took over.

Peter Robinson, would he have been among them, do you think?

Oh, yes, he would have been. I mean, politics is politics.

You have to face up to the fact that

there are a lot of people in politics for their own ends.

At another point, the survey findings say,

"There can be no sense of Dr Paisley

"being stabbed in the back or pushed."

Wasn't the DUP effectively, though,

stabbing you in the back,

at the same time as trying to give the impression that

you were leaving as party leader,

stepping down as party leader and First Minister of your own volition

whereas, in fact, they were pushing you out the door?

All I can say is, it seems that

they have sort of wanted to keep very quiet about it.

Mr Paisley, in stating in that survey

that the DUP must not do a "Free Church act",

concluding that the party would be destroyed if you were pushed out,

wasn't the author of that statement effectively saying that

the Free Presbyterian Church clumsily killed you off

and that the party must not be found correspondingly guilty,

carelessly killing you off because of the fall-out,

that it might damage the party and damage individuals in the party?

Wasn't that really what that was about?

Well, it could have been, but I didn't...

I didn't walk about as if I was condemned and ready for the rope.

I was in charge of the party

as long as I wanted to be in charge of the party,

and it is strange to record that

nobody came forward and said, "We're going to put Ian Paisley out."

Anything they did in getting me out was done behind backs.

When you read what they wrote about your son, Ian,

they spoke of damaging stories in the press, "nothing is being done,"

and Ian Paisley Jr being above discipline in the party.

It speaks of your son causing massive sleaze and scandal

and causing harm to the party.

The survey also says that

a successful budget got lost in the story about planning and sleaze.

We're talking about blood on blood now, Mr Paisley.

How hurtful were those remarks?

They were disgraceful.

They were absolutely disgraceful.

And they were disgraceful because the man that they put in my position

couldn't keep his own seat in Westminster,

and my son, who followed me, had a marvellous victory.

And for once, we're seeing the true nature of the beast,

that there was a beast here who was prepared to go forward

to the destruction of the party,

because losing seats in Northern Ireland is a very serious thing,

and for East Belfast not to be a Unionist seat in the House of Commons

is a terrible, a terrible blow.

Ian's name was cleared by the authorities in Stormont.

Everything that was said against him was proved to be false,

and there was no sleaze, he never brought any sleaze,

his wife didn't do anything wrong, he didn't do anything wrong,

there was nothing morally wrong with his character or his life,

and we know eventually where the sleaze did come from.

From where did it come, do you think?

It came in the home of the man who's now leader himself, Peter Robinson.

It came from his family, and not from the Paisley family.

Mr Paisley, the survey also says that Ian Jr set policy

and was not capable of anything other than

bringing scandal on the party.

It added that Ian Jr helped to destroy you.

Did Ian Jr help to destroy you?

That's nonsense.

It shows the hatred that they had for him.

Tell me this - why do you think that this document, this survey,

accused your son of causing massive sleaze and scandal?

Why would they do that?

Because they're afraid of him.

That's why, they're afraid that he... the people like him.

It's a terrible thing

that they are prepared to put even seats into jeopardy

for their own ends, and...

..there is no doubt about it,

that they got their first terrible and rude awakening

when Peter Robinson was defeated.

I mean, that was a tremendous setback.

Mr Paisley, just how hurtful was it to you as an individual

who had founded the party, who had developed the party,

who had developed so many people within the party,

to suddenly be confronted with this document,

with this survey, making all these allegations against you personally

about your incompetence, about your bad judgement?

How hurt were you internally?

Oh, I...

Every man that has done a work has always been criticised

and, er, as the Scriptures tell us,

friends, people, so-called friends are probably secret enemies.

When your husband came home that night

and he threw the document down, as I understand it,

what did you make of that survey?

What were your first impressions of that document?

I was furious, to put it mildly.

I felt like taking it and ramming it down Timothy Johnston's throat.

There was this reference to "Chuckle Brothers" behaviour and photographs

and laughing with Martin McGuinness as a major concern.

This was one of the big preoccupations.

Did they want Martin McGuinness and him to come on fighting one another

and shouting at one another?

Whenever everybody was delighted,

everybody in Northern Ireland was delighted

at the friendship that had developed between the two men

and that they were each doing their bit to bring prosperity back,

and I think instead of castigating them,

they should have been commended.

Do you feel, Mrs Paisley, that an impatience had grown up

inside the Democratic Unionist Party?

That there was a feeling that the time had come

for Peter Robinson to get his hands on the reins of power?

He wanted that for a long time. And, in fact, I remember

when we were coming up to the signing of the Agreement,

that they thought Ian should have stood down then

and handed the whole thing over to him,

but Ian had done all the hard work and had made all the contacts,

and I think he was only...

..receiving the just rewards for all he had done and all his work,

and seeing the country back on the road to prosperity again.

Exactly one week later, in February 2008,

after receiving the confidential document

targeting Ian Paisley's leadership,

the next act in the drama would be played out.

You were in your room in Stormont Castle,

in the First Minister's office, getting ready,

preparing for a trip to Dublin for a meeting the next morning.

-Do you recall that moment?

-Yes, yes, I do.

-Was Peter Robinson in the room when you came out?

-He was.

-Was Nigel Dodds there?

-He was.

-Was Maurice Morrow there?

-Yes.

Do you recall, was Timothy Johnston, your special adviser, there?

-Yes.

-What happened?

Nigel Dodds said to me, "We want you to be gone by Friday."

I just more or less smirked, and...

But Peter said, "Oh, no, no, no."

He says, "You need to stay in for another couple of months."

Mr Paisley, when Nigel Dodds said to you,

"We want you gone by Friday,"

did you genuinely believe at that point in time

that he meant that you should quit, retire,

-step down as First Minister and party leader by Friday?

-Yes.

When you left that meeting, Mr Paisley, did you feel that

you were dead in the water as First Minister and party leader?

Did you think your tenure of office was finished?

No, I didn't think it at all.

I think that according to them, they wanted it,

but I sort of laughed at...

one wanted two months to prepare the way for himself!

And the other one, I don't know what he wanted.

We put Ian Paisley's account to Peter Robinson, Nigel Dodds,

Maurice Morrow and Timothy Johnston.

In their response, they said that

no such meeting took place as described.

They added, "This is corroborated by indisputable evidence,"

and said the timing of Dr Paisley's departure had been

"entirely a matter for him".

Well, he came in and he leaned over the chair

and he said, "The mighty Dodds wants me to go by the end of this week."

How shocked were you?

I said, "He's a cheeky sod to ask you to do any such thing."

And I said, "What authority is he?"

And...

I was angry and I was shocked,

because I thought of how he had been treated by Ian in Europe.

Ian had given him this post to encourage him,

and then this is the thanks he gets at the end of the day.

How would you characterise

what Peter Robinson and the leadership did to your husband?

Well, I think they assassinated him

by their words and by their deeds

and by the way they treated him,

and I think they treated him shamefully.

Ian Paisley announced his resignation as First Minister

in March 2008. Peter Robinson and his senior colleagues point to

the very different version of events given by Ian Paisley that day.

Originally, when you took office,

you said you intended to see out a full four-year term.

What made you change your mind?

Was it pressure from others in your party who were unhappy

-about the direction of your leadership?

-No. It wasn't.

I don't think I can be pressured. I'm too old in the hide for that.

I have been up and down and up and down for many long years

before you were out of nappies,

and I can say to you that Ian Paisley is not easy to be pushed around.

I have always tried to...

Ian Paisley's former colleagues argue that the passage of time

has now diminished his recollection.

Why did you not reveal that Nigel Dodds,

at a meeting involving Peter Robinson and Maurice Morrow,

had told you that he wanted you out by Friday?

Well, I felt that was business, private business of the people

who were members of the party and not for me to tell them anything.

Are you saying, Mr Paisley, even though the gun was put to your head,

that they forced you out, that you decided not to fight them

because you didn't want to split the party?

Yes, I wanted the best for the party.

And also, I...

I wasn't a young man, and...

I was quite happy, at the end of the day, to say,

"Well, I have fought a good fight, finished the course

"and kept the faith."

They did a dirty trick on him, dirty deeds on him,

and in the end, he was really left with no option but to stand down.

When you look back now,

these years after your departure and your stepping down,

do you have any feelings about

the people who showed you the door, effectively?

No! I've no feelings, I'm a very happy man.

My wife still lives with me and loves me.

If Peter Robinson walked in here today, sir,

-how would you get on with Peter Robinson today?

-Well,

it would be very interesting to see what he had to say at this moment.

I would listen with great attention.

He was your great lieutenant, the great strategist, we were told.

He travelled the journey, the road with you.

Could you have the same rapport, the same relationship with him today

-that you had all those years ago?

-No, I don't think so.

I don't think so. His ways are not my ways, and...

..he has to, he has to answer for how he works.

If losing the moderatorship of his church,

losing the leadership of his party

and losing the highest political office was not enough,

Ian Paisley could still take comfort

in the sanctuary of his beloved Martyrs Memorial,

where he continued to preach.

But come the autumn of 2011,

arrangements were being put in place to remove him from his pulpit too.

The coup de grace came in the form of a letter from the kirk session,

signed by all seven elders of the Martyrs Memorial Church.

The message was unambiguous.

They wanted Ian Paisley out.

As a family, on receipt of a correspondence

from the elders of the Martyrs Memorial,

how did you feel when that correspondence reached you?

Absolutely shattered.

We just could not believe that Ian, after 65 years' ministry

in the same church, continuous ministry for all those years

and leading the church and building it,

that these men take this attitude

and all of a sudden want to boot him out.

We just could not fathom it, and we couldn't understand why.

In fact, one of them said he was destroying the church,

he was wrecking the church, that was his terms.

Mr Paisley, how shocked were you

when you received the letter

from the kirk of your church, signed by the senior figures in the church?

How hurtful was it for the family?

Well, it was hurtful that

that was the way they thought they would treat us,

and they did that.

And they will have to answer to the people

and they will also have to answer to God, at the end of the day.

It was a very difficult...

It was very difficult...

It was a heartbreaking time

and, in fact, the morning that he made the announcement

that he was retiring at the end of the year, his opening words were,

"I did not think I would be making this announcement here this morning."

And people immediately caught onto that, that it wasn't his way.

There was just a stunned silence right across the church,

and afterwards, people were coming out openly weeping

and they said to me, "We didn't... We didn't expect that this morning."

And then some people said, "Well, there must have something happened

"because that's not the way he would do things,

"he has never done anything like that before."

And they just realised in themselves that there was something,

some skulduggery going on somewhere.

And I didn't want to say anything and we all just kept quiet about it,

but since then, there's been a lot of...

..talk and stories being circulated which are without foundation,

and that's why I feel that we need to put the matter straight.

Is it a fact that no member of your family ever enters Martyrs Memorial,

including your husband?

That's right. It was almost like a death, you know. It was almost,

you had that feeling that this person has gone,

everything has gone and it will never be the same again,

it can't ever be the same again.

Just how emotional, how difficult was it going back for your farewell,

given that the umbilical cord had been broken somewhat?

Oh, it... The Lord gave me help, and I was among my friends.

Those people that had come to hear me preach were my friends,

they were my friends, some of them for over 50 years,

and, I mean, I was at home.

Why, though, would you not go and worship each Sunday morning

in your former church?

Why would members of your family no longer go there and worship?

Well, I think that they are better not going to worship there

because they would not be happy,

and you don't go to a church to sit on nails.

You go to a church to sit in a place where there is rest and peace.

I know he was heartbroken and I believe, I'm going to say this,

I believe that it was the heartbreak

that made him ill, took a toll on his health.

Less than two weeks later,

the Paisley family was facing another reality,

the prospect that Ian Paisley's life was nearing an end.

He had been admitted to hospital and was on a life-support machine.

Is it a fact that you reached a point where you actually

started discussing his funeral?

Yes, yes, we did.

We had to do that and have discussions,

and I said, "Look, we have to think about it.

"We're not rushing into anything, and we might not need it

"and I hope we don't, but we have got to face facts."

And for four days, he was just hovering between life and death,

the first four days in intensive care, and he was in there,

he got out of it on the ninth day, but...

..those were four very...

..heavy and oppressing days for us.

Against the odds, Ian Paisley pulled through,

forcing his obituarists to rewrite their scripts.

Enoch Powell, who in many ways didn't achieve his full potential

and lost many, many battles,

said that all political lives,

unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure

because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.

-You built a mighty church.

-Yes.

You built a mighty party.

Do you feel what your church did to you

and the senior figures in your church

and what those in your party did to you, ultimately,

pushing you out the door, seizing power for themselves,

resulted in your having failed, in some respect?

No, I haven't failed at all.

And I have no major regrets.

I'm not infallible. I never claimed to be the Pope.

I just was just Ian Paisley, an Ulsterman,

and I look back, I have regrets.

I have regrets that we are not yet out of the difficulties

that we have been in,

but I have also a rejoicing in my heart that I kept the faith.