UK & World News
- 7 February 2012, 10:40
Ian Paisley Admitted To Intensive Care
Reverend Ian Paisley has been admitted to intensive care with severe heart problems.
The former Northern Ireland First Minister is being treated at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald on the eastern outskirts of Belfast.
Mr Paisley, 85, was rushed to hospital on Sunday, 10 days after preaching his final sermon as a minister.
A former moderator and founding member of the Free Presbyterian Church, he was MP for North Antrim for almost 40 years.
Mr Paisley, now known as Lord Bannside, is believed to have been on medication for several years for an enlarged heart.
There had been concerns about his health several years ago but he made a good recovery from heart problems.
Some people at his farewell sermon at the Martyrs Memorial Church in Belfast on January 27 remarked on how well he appeared for his age.
One member of the congregation said: "I have rarely seen him in better form. Steady on his feet, it was typical Paisley cracking the odd joke with a jibe. He may have looked 85, but he was in fine form, really good."
The politician had been planning to write his autobiography after finally withdrawing from the church and public life.
Mr Paisley was a fierce critic of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement which led to the formation of the first power-sharing administration at Stormont since 1974.
But he later underwent an astonishing political transformation which culminated with him going into power with Sinn Fein.
He stood down as First Minister in 2008 and ceased to be an MP in 2010. He was made a life peer in Gordon Brown's Dissolution Honours List.
what do you think?
Roger Siviter
I thought perhaps he was in hospital to have a bigger hinge fitted to his big mouth! I will always remember a cartoon in the sun showing him with a 5 barr gate in his mouth with a caption saying 'Good Idea', this was preceeded with him screeching that the gate between S-Ireland & N-Ireland should be firmly bolted. As for him being a religious leader, one must always remember that all religion is based on lies, myths, severe cruelty and led by crackpots or power hungry despots. Keep well away from it all and away from any religious sect. They are wicked fanatics who simply want to dominate people and are prepared to kill to do so.
Name witheld
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Edgar Beckett
The more segregation there is between different groups of people, the better All white, English speaking, Protestant, right handed, whiskey drinking, non smoking heterosexuals step this way.
DermottJoe
10:39am on 7/2/2012
i hope he insists that non of those bad catholic doctors and nurses touch his superior protastant flesh, thus preventing him from his immediate assention into heaven to take his seat at gods (protostant)right hand.