Irish Eyes Smile : Immigrants: News that the IRA has agreed to a cease-fire pleases emigres, who hope peace will come at last to the Emerald Isle.

At the Irish Import Shop in Hollywood, homesick emigres and fans of Irish culture can always find their beloved doses of frozen Shannon bacon, Blarney tea, Chieftains music and Waterford crystal. On Wednesday, they could find something new in the Vine Street store--rising hopes for peace in Northern Ireland.

For shop owners Richard and Annie Jones, the news that the Irish Republican Army had agreed to a cease-fire was cause for cautious optimism that the violence between Protestant and Roman Catholic factions will be over soon.

“I’m hopeful. I’m very, very hopeful,” said Annie Jones, who emigrated from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland 34 years ago. “There’s been too much sadness, too many orphans, too many widows and too many widowers.”

At Irish gathering spots and Irish American institutions around Los Angeles, such welcoming of the cease-fire was tempered by uncertainty about a final political settlement and whether it might be scuttled by a new outbreak of bombings and shootings. But many said that if peace can come to South Africa and the Middle East, it’s high time for Northern Ireland.

“I feel like this is New Year’s to us,” said James McDonough, publisher of Irish News and Entertainment, a monthly publication with headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles. “It feels like a period for newness and renewal.”

The big risk now, he and others said, is violence from Protestant vigilante groups who fear that Northern Ireland could be separated from Great Britain and united with the Irish Republic.

Jim McKay, the West Coast sales manger for Celtic International Tours, urged Irish immigrants and Irish Americans in California to lobby President Clinton to maintain diplomatic pressure and provide economic incentives for a settlement.

“There has to be a healing process,” said McKay, who left Belfast 20 years ago. “The hatred and animosity has gone on for so many years.”

Those divisions rarely carry over to California, members of the Irish community here say. In fact, they emphasize, religion is often considered as much a taboo subject here as immigration status.

“A lot of people (in Northern Ireland) know nothing other than fear and in some cases hatred for people who are not of the same religion. If the same two people met here in Los Angeles at a restaurant or a bar, those differences might not mean anything,” said Tom Kelly, publisher of the Irish Tribune, a Canoga Park-based monthly newspaper.

Kelly and others said a peaceful settlement can benefit the economy in both Northern Ireland and the larger republic to the south. And a growing economy, they say, can ease the tensions that originally grew out of northern Catholics’ feelings that they faced discrimination in jobs and civil rights.

Tourism to the north, shrunken by fear of violence, may see quick growth in the months ahead, including a boost from Californians. Local leaders estimate that 1 million residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties are of Irish heritage.

Some Irish immigrants to the United States may decide to return permanently to Ireland if the economy there improves after a peace settlement, said Jeremy Hoctor, the manager of Irish Molly Malone’s Pub on Fairfax Avenue. That mid-Wilshire establishment showcases Irish bands and displays a painting of Bobby Sands, the Irish Republican Army leader who fasted to death in 1981 to protest British treatment of prisoners from the IRA.

“It’s the economy that keeps them abroad,” said Hoctor, who moved here from Ireland eight years ago. “I think it’s just the economy.”

At their Vine Street shop, the Joneses think peace may be imminent but wish it had arrived at least a few weeks sooner. On Aug. 7, Protestant guerrillas killed a pregnant Roman Catholic woman, 38-year-old Kathleen O’Hagan, in her bedroom in a rural area known for its hard-line support of unification with Ireland. Security sources said her husband may have been the intended target. The Jones family in Los Angeles knows the extended O’Hagan clan.

“Maybe there will be another generation growing up that won’t be a part of this violence,” Richard Jones said.