Northern Ireland

The biggest winner in Northern Ireland's parade of major champions might turn out to be Royal Portrush. The scenic club overlooking the country's northern coast is getting a renewed look to bring back the British Open for the first time in more than 50 years. Meanwhile, there's new discussion about taking the Irish Open north as soon as 2013. Club officials said last week that Northern Ireland finance ministers have pledged the necessary financial support to lure the Irish Open, which has had eight host venues in the last 13 years.

The biggest winner in Northern Ireland's parade of major champions might turn out to be Royal Portrush. The scenic club overlooking the country's northern coast is getting a renewed look to bring back the British Open for the first time in more than 50 years. Meanwhile, there's new discussion about taking the Irish Open north as soon as 2013. Club officials said last week that Northern Ireland finance ministers have pledged the necessary financial support to lure the Irish Open, which has had eight host venues in the last 13 years.

One year ago, Northern Ireland's communal strife looked like the danger that secessionist republics of Yugoslavia were courting. Now, Bosnia-Herzegovina stands as the worst-case scenario of what the divided province might become.Northern Ireland has been immobilized for two decades under a constant level of violence, with frozen politics and direct rule from London. Now, intricate negotiations are under way that just might design a future in which all its people could comfortably live.Any settlement of Northern Ireland's problems must provide places for two national traditions, Irish and British.

2011 Masters: Charl Schwartzel (South Africa) 2010 PGA: Martin Kaymer (Germany) British Open: Louis Oosthuizen (South Africa) U.S. Open: Graeme McDowell (Northern Ireland) Masters: Phil Mickelson (U.S.) 2009 PGA: Y.E. Yang (South Korea) British Open: Stewart Cink (U.S.) U.S. Open: Lucas Glover (U.S.) Masters: Angel Cabrera (Argentina) 2008 PGA: Padraig Harrington (Ireland)

Paris -- The situation in Northern Ireland is the most favorable in a generation, with the guns of the hard men on both sides for the moment silenced, and the parties all talking. However, are they talking about the right things?It has once again been shown that violence pays; thus there is serious reason to fear that it will return. Northern Ireland would not have reached the point it is at today had the IRA not pushed aside the peaceful civil-rights protests of the northern Catholic minority, which began in 1968, and begun its terrorist campaign against Britain and against the government of Northern Ireland.

Snap?As the ice age of international politics known in modern history as the Cold War continues its thaw, the most resounding cracks have been heard from those regions of the deepest political rigidity: Germany, Russia, the Middle East, South Africa.So in this climate it was not unreasonable to anticipate a loud snap from Northern Ireland, a frigid conjuncture of near-perpetual conflict, venerable animosities and lovingly cultivated hatreds.Quite possibly it was audible last week, with the admission by the British government's Northern Ireland secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, that London had maintained contacts with the Irish Republican Army "for some years" -- this despite its repeated avowals it would never deal with such men of violence as these.

WHAT DO Middle Easterners have to learn from the Northern Ireland peace accord? Other than the common legacy of terrorism and the shedding of innocent blood, the two conflicts are fundamentally different and the solutions reached at Stormont this month and in Oslo, Norway, in 1993 are very different, too.But the record of the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians does have an important lesson for Northern Ireland: The tough part is implementing an...

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- For the first time in 17 years, leaders of Ulster's feuding unionist and republican traditions will open talks today on a new political future for the strife-torn province.Over the next 10 weeks, they will try to end the sectarian violence that has left 3,000 dead over the past two decades of "The Troubles."Their difficult quest: to find a formula for the peaceful, local government of Northern Ireland.The province has been controlled by the British Parliament since the provincial legislature at Stormount was abolished in 1972 in the face of unionist (Protestant)

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.

LONDON -- Multiparty Irish talks, due to open in Belfast today, were on hold last night because of differences over the location of the crucial next stage, when the Irish government is due to join the peace effort.Northern Ireland political leaders, who met separately with Britain's Ulster Secretary Peter Brooke last week in preliminary contacts, were to hold a face-to-face session today, the first direct talks between the provincial factions in 17 years.The deadlock was over where the follow-up round with Dublin officials, later this month or early next, should be held.

Set up for Harrington Jeff Shain Orlando Sentinel Padraig Harrington might be having the most consistent season of his career, with more top-10 finishes between the PGA Tour and European circuit than any other year. On the flip side, it has been two years since his last trophy at the 2008 PGA. I like the indicators, though. Harrington tied for ninth at last week's Bridgestone Invitational and notched a runner-up finish at the Irish Open before that.

The head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland apologized Wednesday for failing to tell police 35 years ago about an abusive priest who went on to molest more children before being convicted and imprisoned. Amid calls for his resignation, Cardinal Sean Brady expressed regret for his part in a 1975 case in which the church asked two boys to sign oaths of secrecy after they reported being sexually abused. The offending priest, Brendan Smyth, was transferred from parish to parish, where he victimized more children.

Mitchell B. Reiss, an expert in international affairs and former presidential envoy to the peace process in Northern Ireland, will be Washington College's 27th president. Reiss, 52, will succeed Baird Tipson on July 1, the liberal arts college in Chestertown announced Friday. Reiss is a diplomat-in-residence at the College of William & Mary, where he has also worked as a law and government professor and as dean and vice chancellor for international relations. Reiss said he will use his contacts to strengthen ties between the college and Beltway experts in politics, international relations and other fields.

It was significant that in his news conference yesterday, former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell struck the tone not of an investigative prosecutor - he once served as the U.S. attorney for Maine - but that of a peace-making diplomat, the role he assumed as the special envoy who helped broker the Belfast peace agreement in 1998. In fact, he pointedly referenced his work in Northern Ireland as he laid out what he believed should be the next step for baseball. Usually after investigations, the important discussion points are crime and punishment - with a small dollop of deterrence.

MARTIN MEEHAN, 62 IRA commander Martin Meehan, a one-time Irish Republican Army commander who spurred IRA members toward compromise, died of a heart attack Saturday at his Belfast home, the Sinn Fein party said. Mr. Meehan spent 18 years in prison for a wide range of offenses, but ended his days as a firm advocate of peace and compromise in Northern Ireland. He was among the first IRA members arrested in August 1969, the month Britain deployed its army as would-be peacekeepers amid Protestant-Catholic rioting.

In James Michener's novel Poland, a leftist resistance fighter is infuriated when another commando expresses misgivings about Soviet aid against the German occupation. "Do you reject the great victories the Russians are giving us?" he barks. "I shall accept the soldiers marching in," says the second fighter, "but I want them to march out again." British troops marched into Northern Ireland 38 years ago as peacekeepers. Radical elements in the province undoubtedly would see more than a passing similarity between Polish life under Soviet hegemony and life in Northern Ireland under London's rule, but others would call it differently.

LONDON -- Amnesty International called today for an official inquiry into alleged collusion between British government security forces and Protestant paramilitaries on political killings in Northern Ireland.A 48-page report by the London-based human rights group condemned the killing and violence of both sides in the civil conflict, including the British Army, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the mainly Catholic Irish Republican Army and Protestant paramilitary groups, such as the Ulster Defense Association.

Tuesday marked the historic restoration of power-sharing between Catholics and Protestants, Irish republicans and British loyalists in Northern Ireland - and the beginning of a new set of difficult challenges, including how to remember the bloody past. "It is recognized that victims have a right to remember," stated the 1998 Belfast Agreement, which provided the framework for the restoration of local government. It's a little shocking to read this principle enshrined in the cold print of an official document.