The Sweet Silence of Irish Guns : Cease-fire is a big step, though the long-entrenched trouble is far from over

For 25 years the prospect of peace in Northern Ireland has seemed as implausible as the quaint notion of multiracial democracy in South Africa. But if there is any constant in world events, it is change. And change may finally be coming even to Northern Ireland.

The Irish Republican Army announcement of a cease-fire on Tuesday in return for participation in the British-Irish peace process is a huge step. The IRA officially agreed to end a quarter-century of warfare against British rule in Northern Ireland. Not so long ago such a fundamental change in IRA tactics would have been unimaginable.

In London and Dublin the announcement was viewed with cautious elation. The government of British Prime Minister John Major has been working intensively with Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds to end the bitter and brutal civil war and negotiate a new political arrangement for the northern tier of the Irish island. Both Reynolds and Major deserve considerable credit for their persistence and imagination in seeking a way out of this quagmire.

The news must also please Washington. Candidate Bill Clinton stuck his foot into the Northern Ireland problem during the 1992 presidential campaign when he raised the possibility that American mediation might help break the logjam. That presumptuous suggestion drove the British government up the proverbial wall; so did the Clinton Administration’s decision last January to grant a 48-hour visitor’s visa to Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing. Significantly, however, President Clinton’s personal approval earlier this week of a one-week visa for two IRA activists was taken in stride by London. That suggests that the British government is used to American involvement or in fact was happy that diplomatic events seemed to be moving along nicely. Perhaps both.

But, for better or worse, Washington is now more deeply involved than ever in Ireland. The better of it, from the Irish and British perspective, is the possibility that a true political settlement would be financed at least partially with additional American aid; the worse would be if Washington naively misunderstood the situation. Northern Ireland’s troubles are still a long way from ended. Since last December, when Dublin and London launched their latest peace effort, 33 people have been killed by Protestant extremists fighting to keep Northern Ireland in Britain and 24 others have been killed by Irish partisans fighting to reunite Northern Ireland with the Catholic south.

The worrisome question now is whether the Protestant loyalists will honor the IRA offer or launch their own campaign of violence hoping to bait the IRA into a new round of retaliation. But at least for now the guns are silent. And that in itself is a noteworthy accomplishment.