Post-Troubles generation unsure of Paisley’s legacy

The centre of Ballymena was going through its usual, slightly lazy early Friday afternoon yesterday when the secondary schools disgorged their pupils for the weekend.

Niall, Jack, David, Emmet and Ryan, all pupils at St Louis, were ambling their way up Fountain Place, bags slung over their backs, chatting as they went. They looked like model grammar school boys – all blazers, light blue well-pressed shirts and striped ties neatly done up – and without much of a care in the world.

“Paisley dead?” said Niall, sort of asking a question, to which he had just heard the answer.

“Yeah,” said Jack, “we just heard now, coming out.”

So what do you think?

“He wasn’t a great humanitarian,” offered Niall.

They all agreed that they really didn’t know him very well. He was, after all, in his late 80s when he died yesterday, while they were all either 16 or 17, children of the post-Troubles era.

“He didn’t seem very popular in our community,” said Emmet, chipping in.

They had all seen the recent television documentary interview and profile of the former first minister, a programme that spanned the breadth of his lengthy career, from rebel Protestant preacher, rousing what many regarded as his rabble, to firebrand politician whose most used word for decades seemed to be “no”, to latter day smiling, backslapping compromiser, everyone’s jolly grandad.

But for all the Chuckle Brothers chumminess with Martin McGuinness, the boys of St Louis showed evidence of their community’s longer memory perspective, despite their own relative youth.

“If you listen to his speech,” Emmet continued, “there was all that stuff about Catholics and how they breed like rats.”

Alien to them

He and the others didn’t like that; it was alien to them, alien to their world. “And the next thing,” said Ryan a bit mystified, “he’d say something that seemed reasonable.”

“He tried to move the country forward,” said David, “but before [that], it was all sectarian.”

The Democratic Unionist Party advice centre was closed. Most people think it was probably as a mark of respect for their late leader. Margaret Agnew in the AgeNI charity shop isn't too sure about that, however.

“In the end, he suffered a bit,” she said, “the way he was treated by his party.”

She said Paisley was in good standing across the community in Ballymena, his political base for many years.

The town is certainly not smothered by the sort of territory-marking flag war that affects many places north of the Border. The tribal peculiarities of Northern Ireland politics and allegiances are evident only at the Ballykeel roundabout on the Larne Link Road on the edge of the centre.

There, a lone flag fluttered nonchalantly in the afternoon breeze. It was the blue-and-white Star of David flag of Israel, a totem of loyalist sympathies in contrast to the Palestinian flag that often adorns nationalist areas.

“Whatever people’s views on him were,” continued Margaret, “he always had a reputation for being fair with his constituents, whatever their religion.”

And then she added, with a slight hesitation as though not wishing to speak ill of the dead: “He didn’t always help the situation in Northern Ireland.”

Shock at news

Several people said they were shocked to hear the news, which was surprising given Dr Paisley’s age and poor health of recent years.

“He’s just one of those people you think will always be there,” said the woman behind the tourist office counter, opposite the mute DUP offices.

Paisley's early connection to Ballymena was through attending the now shut Ballymena Model School. It wasn't long yesterday before the town centre shopping centre was buzzing with out-of-school young voices, all as well turned out as the boys from St Louis.

Erin and Rebecca, both aged 14 and at Cambridge House school, said they knew very, very little about the former first minister.

“He was a political leader, right?” said Rebecca, looking at Erin to back her up. He did a lot for Northern Ireland, they were sure of that.

Lauren, her namesake pal Lauren, and another Erin are pupils from Ballymena Academy. "It's a mixed school," said one of the Laurens.

“I like mixed schools. We are friends with Catholics. I’ve no problem with that because that’s the way our parents have brought us up.”

“I don’t really know what his legacy is,” says Erin, without realising that she, her mixed school and her friend’s words are all part of his legacy, the better part.

At the back of the shopping centre, many pupils paused as they passed Andrew, a 17-year-old busker who maybe should have been in college but who instead was belting out a McFly song. “This isn’t love,” he sang, “love’s the easiest thing to do.” It says something like that also in Corinthians. As a man wedded to the scriptures, Paisley would surely have known that.