PRAYS FOR O’NEILL’S DOWNFALL

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31109, 12 July 1966, Page 17

PRAYS FOR O’NEILL’S DOWNFALL

fV.Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) LONDON, July 10. The Rev. lan Paisley, Moderator of Northern Ireland’s Free Presbyterian Church, apparently relishes the prospect of his forthcoming showdown with the country’s Prime Minister, the “New York Times” news service reported. Speaking In the solidly Protestant Sandy Row section of Belfast a few nights ago. Mr Paisley summed up the current objective of his politics: “We call upon thee, oh Lord, to rid us of the arch traitor, the Prime Minister Captain Terence O’Neill.’* Mr Paisley. 6ft 4in tall and weighing about 16 stone, towering above the denizens of Sandy Row, waved above his head a copy of the summons that had been served on him to appear in a Magistrate's Court on July 18 to answer charges of holding illegal

demonstrations and provoking a riot. He laughed, apparentlyrelishing the prospect of a showdown fight with the Prime Minister, and the crowd laughed. Apparently they relished the prospect too. The confrontation between the Protestant Prime Minister and the extremist Protestant priest is curious in that its roots lie in the basic struggle between the Protestant majority and Roman Catholic minority in Northern Ireland, the news service said. This struggle is the heritage of the 17th century immigration from Scotland, Wales and England by which Britain’s rulers sought to subdue “the wild Irish,” and of the partition of Ireland of 1920.

Ulstermen now number about 1,500,000, of whom onethird are Roman Catholics. The Protestant majority, mostly descendants of the 17th century migrants, comprises Presbyterians (420,000). Church of Ireland Anglicans (350,000), Methodist (72000), and smaller denominations and sects.

The Free Presbyterian Church, founded by Mr Paisley in 1951 after he had obtained a religious degree from

an American correspondence school, has, according to offi dal Ulster statistics, about 1000 members.

Another 3000 to 5000 people march in its parades, and there are perhaps 50,000 potential supporters. Mr Paisley, however claims 600,000 supporters. Although the Irish Republic in the South has developed a benign attitude toward Protestants, the Protestants of the North have a deeply ingrained siege mentality, the news service said. If North and South were united they would be a minority, and that would be fearsome and intolerable. In the six counties of Ulster they are a majority, but for how long?

In the primary schools of Belfast, the children are already nearly evenly divided between Protestants and Roman Catholics. In another 10 years Roman Catholic children may Outnumber Protestants, and in 20 years, who knows? The political tradition of the dominant Unionist Party is overtly intolerant The “evils” of "Romanism” and “Papism” are its cliches, the news service said.

The dominance is reinforced by an elaborate system of gerrymandering of election districts,' restriction of suffrage, and Protestant preference in job giving. Even in places such as Londonderry, where Roman Catholics are in the majority, the arrangement of election districts ensures a Protestant majority in local government. The Protestant business element is strengthened at the polls by rules that give a man up to six extra votes for his “company.” The “Sunday Times” called Ulster “John Bull’s political slum.” The Prime Minister, Captain O’Neill, a moderate man, has been talking a good deal in the last four years about conciliation between Roman Catholics and Protestants. He has held Roman CatholicProtestant meetings, and visited Roman Catholic schools. His most telling gesture was to invite the Prime Minister of the Irish Republic, Mr Sean Lemass, to Belfast early last year, and then to return the visit in Dublin.

However, Captain O’Neill has always made clear the

limits of conciliation as far as he is concerned. He wants to live peacefully with the Irish Republic, do business with it, but to maintain forever partition and the government of Ulster. Nor has he or his government shown any inclination to reforms favouring the Roman Catholics. But in the eyes of Mr Paisley and his followers. Captain O’Neill has already gone too far. He is The arch traitor” who has compromised with “the whore of Babylon, the Church of Rome, the enemy of liberty and freedom down through the ages.” Mr Paisley tells his audiences that it was a Roman Catholic who threw the piece of concrete that hit Queen Elizabeth’s car during her visit on July 4, that it was Roman Catholic “gangsters” who a few weeks ago burned down his father’s summer cottage, that it was Roman Catholics who pelted his procession and caused a riot. He sympathises with the Protestants who have been charged with killing Roman Catholics. ■< And for all the trouble he blames “the treacherous policies” of Captain O’Neill.