The former Northern Ireland leader Ian Paisley has died at the age of 88.<br /><br />For years, Paisley well earned a reputation as a hardline Protestant cleric. He fiercely opposed any concessionary deals with Irish Republicans.<br /><br />As the leading light of hardline Unionism he wanted to maintain links to the United Kingdom.<br /><br />Paisley refused to join the talks that led to the Good Friday agreement that paved the way for a power-sharing assembly. At the time he strongly objected to sharing a table with Sinn Fein, the political ally of the IRA militant movement.<br /><br />He seemed ill-suited to run the province when he became first minister in 2007 after years of opposing reconciliation with Irish Republicans with his mantra of “No Surrender”.<br /><br />But once in office, he forged an unlikely friendship with Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, a senior Sinn Fein figure who said on Twitter “I’ve lost a friend.”
