State Papers: Peace campaigner Senator Gordon Wilson ‘deeply offended’ by Paisley’s reaction to his attending remembrance mass

A PEACE campaigner whose daughter was killed in the Enniskillen bombing told Irish government officials he was “deeply offended” after Ian Paisley denounced him for attending a mass for terror victims in a Catholic church. The revelation is contained in the minutes of a formerly confidential meeting between Gordon Wilson and civil servant Sean O hUiginn in July 1993. The minutes also showed that Mr Wilson, who became an Irish senator that year, was repeatedly assured that his appointment to the Seanad was as an independent. Mr O hUiginn was particularly taken by how upset the peace campaigner was over Mr Paisley’s attack on him. He wrote: “[He] did not conceal a strong resentment at the attitude of the DUP. He had been denounced by Paisley. He had subsequently met [him] in... an airport, but Paisley had cut him dead — which, a little surprisingly, seems to have offended him deeply.” The minutes were released by the Republic’s State Archive.