In 1988, when Pope John Paul II was speaking before the European Parliament, he was there as an MEP and he stood up with sign and was shouting "The Pope is the anti-Christ! The Pope is the anti-Christ." That got my attention as I had just started dating a girl from Dublin who would eventually be my wife! I can remember being in Dublin in 1989 and nearly doubling over in laughter when RTE was broadcasting an interview with Jerry Adams and "translating" for him since the rule at the time was that he was not allowed to be heard on BBC or RTE. The next interview was with Paisley and to this day, whenever there is something I want to tease my wife about, I put on my strongest Northern Ireland accent and exclaim "It's a Papist plot. A Papist plot!"
Paisley had been excoriating the Catholic Church for years before that obviously and was quite a known quantity. If he had just left it at "The IRA are terrorists", I wouldn't think half bad of him!
I have some relatives up the North though not in his district. As Catholics, they get along fine with pretty much everyone though there are a few thick skulls even among medical doctors. And just like the Irish Catholics in Massachusetts that put Teddy Kennedy back in office every 6 years, Paisley delivered for Northern Ireland despite his rhetoric.
However, his comments and abrasive style personalized the bigotry in the North for many of the young people at the time in the Republic. If you were an impressionable boy with few friends in the early 80's attending a Christian Brothers' school in Cork, reading "The Trinity"* and listening to your pro-IRA instructor, you would be the perfect candidate for IRA recruitment and Paisley's antics only eased the process.
Though since the Good Friday agreement, Ian Paisley seems to have calmed down but his tenacity to pursue the IRA's arms disposal is quite admirable. I can't say I've researched much about what is son is up to though.
* I can't remember if that's the exact name of the book I'm thinking of but it was a book of Irish history that made the English look like ogres. It was written in the 70's I think. (A book probably read by a few FReepers we know!)
Actually, I know about that incident in the European Parliment, I regard anything that disrupts the workings of the EU as a good thing, hehe.
Seriously, from what I can gather, a lot of Paisley's anti-Catholic rhetoric is hot-air - he doesn't seem to mean what he says on that front, as slane pointed put, he is popular with his Catholic constituents.
But, ok, I can see your point there.