AHC/WI: Paisley moderates in 1972

The popular history on the Reverend Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland is that he spent thirty odd years as a priest preaching from a gospel of hate/hand me down bible, riling up working class protestants, making himself responsible for an uptick in loyalist violence, participated in the peace process with apparent reluctance, and then shocked everyone when he sat down with Sinn Féin to negotiate a program for government.

Now of course it's all at least partially true, but for a brief moment in 1972, shortly after the re-branding of the Protestant Unionist Party as the DUP, Paisley began taking on an integrationist tone when he told Unionists to move past the suspension of the old Stormont and even condemned the aggressive tactics of Bill Craig and the Vanguard Unionist group, saying that it would be a mistake to adopt the 'deplorable tactics of their enemies'. He was a rarity in the Unionist community when he suggested that a new Stormont Assembly could keep NI separate from the UK. Of course he was still parroting lines about patrolling Republican neighbourhoods, but it was a surprising message from Paisley nonetheless. It never really caught on and he went back to the bible thumping soon after.

How can this message catch on and keep Paisley to a (more) moderate path going forth? If he can somehow get it to work, how does that bode for the Troubles and the Sunningdale agreement? Would Craig and Vanguard see a boost in support from embittered DUP extremists? What ramifications would this have on the Troubles and Britain as a whole?
 
To be honest, I'm pessimistic. By 1972, the mood on both sides was so ugly that if Paisley took a moderate line, his followers would dump him and turn to someone else who more closely represented their views [this happened to the official Unionists and the official IRA].

Could Sunningdale be made to work? Only if the IRA and Vanguard signed on. And in 1972, they weren't going to.
 
I recall reading about how he had Bernadette Devlin round for tea around this period, and that the two found they agreed on many matters to do with welfare and some economic matters, and got along remarkably well. Yet when the proposal to actually make a push on said matters, Paisley was apprehensive about doing so due potentially losing support to Craig or being seen as a sellout (I guess at least.) Now if something comes off this,
I hypotheses that things may go as you suggest in your opening points @spookyscaryskeletons. My guess would be that Paisley could potentially become something similar to post-1975 CC Bill Craig, being seen to straddle on both horses, though the flip side is that this would probably doom the new DUP and would give Vanguard a far greater showing than they achieved OTL around 1973.
 
I recall reading about how he had Bernadette Devlin round for tea around this period, and that the two found they agreed on many matters to do with welfare and some economic matters, and got along remarkably well. Yet when the proposal to actually make a push on said matters, Paisley was apprehensive about doing so due potentially losing support to Craig or being seen as a sellout (I guess at least.) Now if something comes off this,
I hypotheses that things may go as you suggest in your opening points @spookyscaryskeletons. My guess would be that Paisley could potentially become something similar to post-1975 CC Bill Craig, being seen to straddle on both horses, though the flip side is that this would probably doom the new DUP and would give Vanguard a far greater showing than they achieved OTL around 1973.
I have to wonder - even if the DUP is wounded in the powersharing election and 1974, would it still not hold at least a little power?

One of the mroe interesting butterflies would be the UUUC. Would it still be formed - and if so how different a beast would it be?
 
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