[11] By June 1950 Paisley was preaching at an 'Old Time Gospel Campaign' on waste ground off Moore Street in the lower Ravehill Road area of Belfast.

In response, the leaders of that congregation left the PCI and began a new denomination, the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, with Paisley, who was just 25 years old at the time.

[21] When Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother met Pope John XXIII in 1958, Paisley condemned them for "committing spiritual fornication and adultery with the Antichrist".

"[33] Paisley and his followers also protested against what they saw as instances of blasphemy in popular culture, including the stage productions Jesus Christ Superstar and Jerry Springer: The Opera,[34][35] as well as being strongly anti-abortion.

Paisley's campaign failed when legislation was passed in 1982 as a result of the previous year's ruling by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Dudgeon v United Kingdom.

[40] In 1949, Paisley formed a Northern Irish branch of the National Union of Protestants, the group being led in the UK by his uncle, W. St Clair Taylor.

[41] Paisley's first political involvement came at the 1950 general election when he campaigned on behalf of the successful Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) candidate in Belfast West, the Church of Ireland minister James Godfrey MacManaway.

[15] Paisley first hit headlines in 1956 when Maura Lyons, a 15-year-old Belfast Catholic doubting her faith, sought his help and was smuggled illegally to Scotland by members of his Free Presbyterian Church.

[54] At the same time, a loyalist paramilitary group calling itself the "Ulster Volunteer Force" (UVF) emerged in the Shankill area of Belfast, led by Gusty Spence.

[56] Paisley forced the Stormont government to mobilise B-Specials for the entire month of April with the hope of outlawing public commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

Paisley failed in this objective but did succeed in pressuring the government to ban trains from the Republic transporting people to Northern Ireland for the ceremonies.

The next day, Protestant mobs several thousand strong "rampaged through the city, smashing windows and trying to damage businesses owned by Catholics".

Paisley's Protestant Telegraph called them "the first act of sabotage perpetrated by the IRA since the murderous campaign of 1956", warning that it was "an ominous indication of what lies ahead for Ulster".

[68] Paisley's approach led him, in turn, to oppose O'Neill's successors as Prime Minister, Major James Chichester-Clark (later Lord Moyola) and Brian Faulkner.

[75]On 16 April 1970, in a by-election to the Northern Ireland Parliament, Paisley, standing on behalf of the Protestant Unionist Party, won the Bannside seat formerly held by Prime Minister Terence O'Neill.

[78] British Government papers, released in 2002, show that in 1971 Paisley attempted to reach a compromise with the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP).

[79]Promoting the DUP's manifesto at a launch event ahead of the 1983 United Kingdom general election Paisley made clear that the core message of the party's campaign would be to "expose and oppose Provisional Sinn Fein and its fellow travellers, the SDLP."

[80]Speaking at the launch of the DUP's policy proposals for devolved government for the briefly revived Northern Ireland Assembly in September 1984, Paisley echoed the document's position on power-sharing with the SDLP: I am totally opposed to power-sharing because it is unworkable and destroys the very principle of my Unionism, which is that we are part of the UK and cannot in any way bring into government those who want to destroy Northern Ireland.

At the time, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was holding talks with Taoiseach Charles Haughey, and the Irish republican hunger strike was underway.

Both unionist parties resigned their seats in the British House of Commons, suspended district council meetings, and supported a campaign of mass civil disobedience.

[103] That evening, he addressed an Ulster Clubs rally in Larne and warned:If the British government force us down the road to a united Ireland we will fight to the death!

Their singing of loyalist songs outside the courthouse led to rioting, causing Paisley and Robinson to lodge a formal complaint with the Foreign Office about what they said was inadequate protection.

At the rally, Paisley and DUP members Peter Robinson and Ivan Foster announced the formation of the Ulster Resistance Movement (URM).

As the march ended, Paisley and David Trimble held hands in the air in what appeared to be a gesture of triumph, causing considerable ill-feeling among the Catholic residents.

[118] Paisley's DUP was initially involved in the negotiations under former United States Senator George J. Mitchell that eventually led to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, but the party withdrew in protest when Sinn Féin was allowed to participate after the Provisional IRA's 1994 ceasefire.

The DUP took two seats in the multi-party power-sharing executive (Paisley, like the leaders of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and Sinn Féin chose not to become a minister) but those DUP members serving as ministers (Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds) refused to attend meetings of the Executive Committee (cabinet) in protest at Sinn Féin's participation.

[135] In September 2007, he confirmed that he would contest North Antrim at the 2010 general election as well as serving the full four years as First Minister, stating "I might as well make hay while the sun shines.

[1] On 17 April, Peter Robinson was elected unopposed as leader of the DUP[139] and succeeded Paisley as First Minister at a special sitting of the assembly on 5 June 2008.

[150] His body was buried at Ballygowan, in County Down on 15 September following a private funeral,[151] and a public memorial for 830 invited guests[152] was held in the Ulster Hall on 19 October 2014.

[153] A New York Times obituary reported that late in life Paisley had moderated and softened his stances against Roman Catholics but that "the legacies of fighting and religious hatreds remained.