- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 May 2007 17.44 BST
Ten months ago, Ian Paisley told an Orange Order march that Sinn Fein were "not fit to be in the government of Northern Ireland and it will be over our dead bodies if they ever get there". Many observers did indeed believe that Stormont would only reopen when the 81-year-old had met his maker. They were wrong.
Ever since the start of the Northern Ireland peace process, Dr Paisley has had the weaker set of cards to play. Despite his membership of the Orange Order, whose marches through Catholic districts have frequently led to riots and killings, the Democratic Unionist leader has always formally eschewed violence but some loyalist paramilitary groups claim that his speeches inspired them. But where Sinn Fein and the IRA could hint at the threat of a return to the Troubles, Dr Paisley's chief weapon was words.
Invariably, they were uncompromising. John Hume of the SDLP says he once told the DUP leader: "Ian, if the word 'no' were to be removed from the English language, you'd be speechless, wouldn't you!"
"No, I wouldn't!" replied Dr Paisley.
To his detractors, Dr Paisley's political career has been about denial: of the various efforts at peace, of the authority of the Pope, of the legitimacy of abortion and homosexuality (he launched a Save Ulster From Sodomy campaign when the decriminalisation of homosexual acts was extended to Northern Ireland), of the admittance of alcohol ("the devil's buttermilk"). They accuse him of dragging out the peace process and inspiring sectarian violence through his rhetoric. Dr Paisley's supporters reply that the IRA would never have put its weapons beyond use if the DUP leader had not made it a condition of the peace process.
Dr Paisley's branch of Presbyterianism - what he calls "Bible Protestantism" - is key to an understanding of the man. The son of an Independent Baptist pastor, he became an evangelical at the bidding of his Scottish mother when he was six. As a young preacher, and as a founder of the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, his faith and his loathing of "Rome" have never wavered. Dr Paisley believes God has spoken to him: inevitably, He told him that Ireland would never be united.
The Paisley worldview, which claims seat number 666 in the European Parliament is reserved for the Antichrist, is hard for most people outside the Loyalist community to understand. But his stubborn intransigence is a quality on which Northern Ireland Protestants feel they can rely. The more moderate Ulster Unionist David Trimble may have been crucial to negotiating the Good Friday Agreement, but in 2005 the Protestant community, feeling Sinn Fein had got away with too much, kicked out his party and decided they wanted a man who could represent their interests more forcefully: Dr Paisley.
Reports of ill health in recent years have been indignantly denied. Dr Paisley lost four stone in 2003, no longer eats after 7pm and has given up his favourite breakfast, the "Ulster Fry". His son, Ian Paisley Jr (or "Baby Doc", as he is sometimes known to friends) would seem the natural successor to the Democratic Unionist leadership - he currently sits at Stormont and is a relatively youthful 40 - but there may be other rivals for the DUP crown. Peter Robinson, who handles the home affairs brief, and the sharp, broadly educated Nigel Dodds are also in the running. But the new first minister of Northern Ireland has got what he wanted, and he is not about to hand Sinn Fein the present of his retirement.
