Irish Hardliner Turned Peacemaker Dies

Ian Paisley, the former Democratic Unionist Party leader who became Northern Ireland’s first minister, has died at age 88. While he had earlier been seen as a Protestant extremist—he famously threw snowballs at an Irish Prime Minister and called the Pope “the whore of Babylon”—who opposed the peace process. However, he would famously sit with Gerry Adams when his party and Sinn Fein agreed to work together in government. In 2007, he became the first minister of Northern Ireland, while Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness was the deputy first minister.