Ian Paisley

Whatever his national reputation, Paisley was regarded in North Antrim, which he represented from 1970 to 2010, as a tireless constituency MP who took up cases for Catholic and Protestant constituents alike. Nationalist councillors and farmers' groups acknowledged it, and his weekly surgeries in Ballymena were famously busy. The contrast between his sectarian rhetoric and his even-handed casework is part of why his later turn to power-sharing was less surprising locally than nationally.