ready to demonstrate to a freezing, huddled media his opposition to the presence of Taoiseach Sean Lemass in Unionism's political and psychological heartland.
Lemass had been invited to Belfast by Terence O'Neill, after the Taoiseach had made a series of speeches south of the Border in which he had hinted at a better and more cooperative relationship between the two countries. The very fact that Lemass was prepared for a formal meeting with Northern Ireland's Prime Minister was, in itself, of huge significance. But it was a significance either lost on, or totally ignored by, Ian Paisley. For him, it was a moment for the photo-opportunity and the chance to advance his claim to be the genuine, unbending voice of real unionism.
On January 14, 2008, 43 years on from that protest, Ian Paisley will be in his suite of offices in Parliament Buildings, sharing power with former and existing members of the IRA Army Council; and maybe even finding time for a quick one-to-one back-slapping chat with his chum Bertie Ahern – assuming, of course, that this particular Taoiseach can get time-out from defending himself against charges of personal and financial corruption.
Ulster Unionism has experienced a series of turning-points since the mid-1960s, ditching one mantra after another as it faced the fact that its power would first have to be diluted and then shared. The crucial difference between May 2007 and all the other turning-points, was that a very substantial and united majority of unionism had finally accepted that reality. And the key to that acceptance was Ian Paisley. Had the DUP not been prepared to share power with Sinn Fein and had Ian Paisley not been prepared to accept Martin McGuinness as his co-equal (and make no mistake about it: in political and legal terms McGuinness is his co-equal) then we wouldn't now have a devolved government.
I don't think we will ever really know why Ian Paisley decided to cut the deal last May. It may have been because he realised that, having made it to the top of the electoral ladder, there was nowhere else to go. It may have been much more personal than that, of course; after six decades of protest he may have reckoned that he needed a tangible legacy. Perhaps he was bullied into it by Tony Blair, or bundled into it by a growing army of DUP careerists who had their own immediate future to think of. Or maybe, just maybe, he really did believe that he had got it right and delivered a deal that was good for unionism.
I suspect the latter. Fair enough, there is hardly a button of legislative or administrative difference between the original Belfast Agreement and the St Andrews add-ons, but having understood that he wasn't going to be given a new drawing board to work from, Dr Paisley made the best of the hand he had. And while the UUP had proved spectacularly bad at selling the merits of the 1998 Agreement, the DUP (Paisley and Robinson particularly) proved spectacularly good at selling the merits of what had become the Belfast Agreement in a kilt.
What matters now is whether 2008 will be the year in which everything beds down and a genuinely new and stable political era begins. But if Sinn Fein continues to bang on about a United Ireland, while the SDLP either joins with, or is subsumed by Fianna Fail, then the constitutional question will remain the fixed point of politics in Northern Ireland. And that, of course, will have a knock-on effect within unionism.
In one sense I have ceased to be surprised by anything that the DUP now says or does: indeed, this column can lay fair claim to having, a number of years ago, pinpointed the route map that the DUP would "inevitably follow on the relentless journey to the First Minister's office". But even I have been surprised by their utter lack of concern about Fianna Fail's foray into local politics. Furthermore, in their frantic effort to sell the merits of St Andrews as some sort of Unionist utopia, I think the DUP has seriously underplayed the threat that still remains to the Union itself.
The physical-force battle may have ended, with paramilitaries on all sides acknowledging, albeit with varying degrees of reluctance, that nothing can be settled by violence alone. But the political, financial and propaganda battles will continue; and I'm not convinced that either the DUP or UUP, let alone the born-again refusniks of Jim Allister's TUV, are fully prepared and equipped to fight those battles. What the DUP fails to understand is that the much trumpeted ability to exercise a veto over Sinn Fein proposals doesn't, in fact, allow it to unilaterally promote its own agenda, let alone promote the Union.
If both communities want 2008 to represent year zero of the new era, then it will require huge changes within the electorate and within the political parties. I see no sign of those changes. Indeed, it really is beginning to look like the dominating consequence of the DUP-Sinn Fein deal will be stalemate rather than breakthrough. If that is the case then it will, inevitably, lead to functional and uninspired government, rather than a dedicated legislative agenda for a co-operative Northern Ireland.
That sort of stalemate, in which neither side seems to gain the upper hand, may suit the mindset of those who continue to see everything in terms of us-and-them. But it also suits Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Fianna Fail, none of whom has any vested long-term interest in a successful and confident Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. The winds of nationalism are growing and blowing across the UK (which partially explains Fianna Fail's desire to test the local waters) and unionism in Northern Ireland must be strong enough to resist those winds; as well as resisting any temptation to swap pan-UK unionism for a hand-me-down, Stormont based, little-Ulster nationalism.
2007 was clearly a turning point year for unionism. 2008 will determine if we are heading in the right direction.