SHAKING hands with "the devil" was an acceptable description of coming into contact with one's opponent, the Circuit Civil Court was told yesterday.
A Sun reporter, Mr Paddy Clancy, told Mr Justice Spain it had crept into the English language since the James Cagney film Shake Hands with the Devil, about an IRA member's association with his sworn enemy.
He said the Sun's reporting of the comment, used to describe a handshake by the Rev Ian Paisley, with Sinn Fein councillor Mrs Christy Burke did not mean Mr Burke was literally the devil and the son of ultimate evil.
It was a metaphorical reference, by a unionist extremist to Dr Paisley's having shaken hands with a member of Sinn Fein, which was seen by loyalists in 1993, a year of considerable strife, as closely allied with evil.
Mr Clancy was giving evidence in a £30,000 defamation action by
Mr Burke against News Group Newspapers Ltd, publishers of the Sun, and RTE, which carried a reference to the comment on What it Says in the Papers.
Mr Burke has already told the court he became the centre of ridicule and the butt of jokes and malicious comment as the result of the Sun carrying a picture of the handshake under a heading "Paisley in handshake with devil" and RTE's reference to it.
Mr Clancy told Mr Eoin McCullough, counsel for the Sun, that the incident and comment had taken place at Dublin Castle in December 1993 when the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major, was meeting the former Taoiseach, Mr Albert Reynolds. Dr Paisley had staged a protest and the comment referred to by the Sun had been made by a loyalist supporter.
He told Mr Peter Charleton, senior counsel for Mr Burke, that he regretted that Mr Burke had felt hurt by the coverage of the incident but felt it was fair comment on a matter of public interest and not libelous.
A political commentator, Mr John Cooney, told Mr Esmonde Keane, counsel for RTE, that supporters of Dr Paisley did not draw any distinction between the IRA and Sinn Fein. He felt the handshake was an attempt by Mr Burke to get publicity but he had underestimated the capacity of Dr Paisley to be a better showman than himself.
Journalists covering the political summit at Dublin Castle had seen Mr Burke's greeting of Dr Paisley as a piece of stage managed publicity seeking which had backfired on him. Mr Cooney accepted that not all people in Sinn Fein were evil and that even in 1993 some were working towards peace.
Referring to a comment by a Paisley supporter to the effect that Dr Paisley had "shaken hands with the devil", Mr Cooney said members of Dr Paisley's Free Presbyterian Church would believe that 90 per cent of Roman Catholics in the Republic were ink collusion with the devil since they were taught and believed the Pope, to be the Antichrist.
Mr Justice Spain reserved judgment.