Actually, Paisley was there to protest. He managed to get 200 others to protest with him:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ian-paisley-shows-that-romes-enemies-arent-all-secular-2081691.html
I have no doubt that a group of 200 Calvinist bigots would seem like a huge crowd to someone who was accustomed to a typical OPC congregation of 61.
"He looks like a kindly old man, but I am sure Hitler could be perfectly charming at times, too," said Anne Hay, 57, an adult literacy teacher who was on her first demonstration. "I believe in liberal values and the Pope stands for everything that is against those values – rights for women, allowing them to have control over their own bodies, and rights for gay people – and that is before you even start on the paedophile issue," she said.