Robinson takes over as DUP leader in Northern Ireland

Ian Paisley, the once fervently anti-catholic firebrand Presbyterian preacher who eventually relented and became a peacemaker, has stepped down from his post as leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, the party representing Protestants who want to keep Northern Ireland as part of the United Kingdom.

The change will likely result in a more pragmatic period ofpower-sharing between Protestants and Catholics. Though he eventually was willing to work with Sinn Fein, the party representing Catholics in Northern Ireland who had wanted the province to join the Republic of Ireland, Paisley was still regarded with suspicion and sometimes even contempt by many Catholics for his former vitriol.