Extremist Triumph

His enemies have called him "the bloated bullfrog" and "the clergyman in jackboots." But the Rev. I.R.K. (for Ian Richard Kyle) Paisley, leader of Northern Ireland's extremist Protestants, demonstrated last week that his militant anti-Catholicism has strong appeal to his country's rank-and-file Protestant voters. He handily won a seat in Ulster's 52-member Parliament at Stormont, while one of his close colleagues, the Rev. William Beattie, 27, scored an upset in a second by-election.

Since last summer's bloody rioting in Londonderry and Belfast, the Unionist Party government of Prime Minister Major James Chichester-Clark has belatedly pressed for the reforms in voting and housing long demanded by Northern Ireland's 500,000 Catholics, who are outnumbered 2 to 1 by Protestants. Most important, the government ordered the disbanding of the anti-Catholic police auxiliary, the "B Specials," and the transforming of the Protestant-leaning paramilitary Royal Ulster Constabulary into a civilian police force.

Given a fair test, the reforms might have reduced tension. Instead, they alarmed many Protestants. In an atmosphere of growing anger, Paisley warned voters: "You cannot talk peace until the enemy surrenders, and the enemy is the Catholic Church." The predominantly Protestant constituency of Bannside, northwest of Belfast, gave him a decisive victory over two opponents.

What worries Ulster's moderates is that Paisley's election might lead eventually to the fall of Chichester-Clark's government in favor of a hard-line Protestant group. Certainly, that is one of Paisley's goals. "I'll make it so hot for the Prime Minister," he boasted last week, "he'll want to retire."

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