Twenty years ago the Democratic Unionist Party was the only mainstream political party in Northern Ireland that opposed the Good Friday Agreement. The party was synonymous with its founder, Dr Ian Paisley, the firebrand preacher who also established the Free Presbyterian Church. It was located at the margins of the political spectrum, which in a deeply polarised Northern Ireland was quite an achievement. In 1998 the much more moderate Ulster Unionist Party was the voice of unionism and, because of the Protestant majority, it was the most powerful party in Northern Ireland. The SDLP was the moderate nationalist party, representing the majority of the Roman Catholic population.

Source: The Times November 29, 2018 12:00 UTC