Belfast

THE SUSPENSION of Sinn Fein from the Irish peace talks, for murders in Belfast by its IRA affiliate, testifies less to failure of the talks than to progress being made.What is most impressive about the negotiation is the continual agreement exhibited by the British and Irish governments. Were it left to Prime Ministers Tony Blair of Britain and Bertie Ahern of Ireland to hash out a settlement, they would already have done so. To some extent it is, and they have.Representatives from Northern Ireland's Protestant majority and from its Catholic minority have not really bargained with each other.

GREAT HOPES attend the negotiations at Stormont, near Belfast, that aim to bring accommodation to the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland, to Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and to that republic and Britain. A business committee gets down to setting an agenda -- in itself, substance -- today.Two developments, following the second IRA ceasefire, permit optimism. One is that John Hume, leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP), biggest vote-winner among the Catholic minority in the province, is not running for president of the Irish Republic, for which he is eligible.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- None of the dreams of lasting peace in Northern Ireland have yet come true.There is the example of Gerry Adams, after the handshakes with President Clinton, after the first coating of worldwide celebrity was tarnished, after the Irish Republican Army's terror bombs wrecked a fragile peace nearly a year ago.Adams, as president of Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA, still conducts business and interviews inside a party headquarters...

Gerard Devlin's "End Game" paintings have the look of ash-gray relics collected from an ancient fire.The Belfast Irishman's newest works, now at the Halcyon Gallery in Fells Point, emerge from the "Troubles" that have burned and bloodied his Northern Ireland homeland nearly all his life.His dark, brooding paintings evoke the shadowy interiors of the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett's bleak play "Endgame" and the black atrocities of Francisco Goya's suite of etchings called "The Disasters of War."

LONDON -- Is the Irish Republican Army about to call another cease-fire?The question is overshadowing the maneuvers taking place in advance of Monday's formal talks on the future of Northern Ireland.The IRA announced it was studying government documents that were part of the agreement to set up the talks -- a statement seen by many as a signal the IRA could be evaluating its cease-fire policy.Previously, the group had said there was little chance of a cease-fire before the talks opened.Based on results of a May 30 election, nine political parties are scheduled to be represented at the talks, to be chaired by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- On May 4, 1973, a sniper shot Constable Jim Seymour in the head as he opened the gate to a fortified police station. For more than two decades, he lay paralyzed in a coma, a painful symbol in a long line of police casualties from this land's sectarian warfare. Constable Seymour died March 2, 1995.There may never have been a more dangerous place to be a police officer than the gritty streets of Belfast. Across 25 bloody years, officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary -- strongly identified with the Protestant community -- were slain at an average of one a month.

Beijing's real fear is that when Taiwan gets a democratically elected chief executive, every region will want one.Hyman Pressman was one comptroller who knew how to get his name in the papers, and how to keep it out.The new doctrine in Washington is that the Constitution gives the power to declare war on Cuba to Jorge Mas Canosa.Scientists from Oxford and Belfast have determined that Stonehenge is 500 years older than everyone previously thought, whatever that was.Pub Date: 3/22/96hTC

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- After more than a year of relative peace, the people of Northern Ireland were hit yesterday by the aftershock of a terror bombing in London and the Irish Republican Army claiming responsibility for the blast.The IRA, in a statement to an Irish television network, said it set off the half-ton car bomb, which exploded Friday in the Docklands business district in east London and threatened to shatter the Northern Ireland peace process.Police yesterday discovered the bodies of two men amid the wreckage of the 15 damaged buildings.

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Ivan Conway tucked the tiny American flag into the tiny hands of his 22-month-old grandson Bryan and held the boy aloft so that he could see the bright lights of an American-grown Christmas tree and catch a glimpse the president of the United States last night.The crowd of 50,000 filled Belfast with cheers, as the noise rode like a wave from City Hall, washing up on streets a half-mile away. It could have been Peoria. Or Abilene. But it was Belfast on a cold autumn night when music and peace wafted through the air, overwhelming the city so long trapped in war and misery.

ROSSLEA, Northern Ireland -- Forty-seven times, the farmers of County Fermanagh rebuilt the Lackey Bridge across the River Finn, creating a crossing with old cars and trucks and crushed rocks. Forty-six times, the British army either tore away the bridge or blocked the access road.The farmers' last bridge still stands, and a new one built by the British with concrete and steel is rising from the spring mud. Someone has even given the new bridge a charm -- a shamrock drawn on concrete."They're certainly not building this one to blow it up again," says Michael McPhillips, chairman of the local bridge committee.