Partying Hard for Peace

So what's to celebrate? The Northern Ireland peace process is a mess and no one knows how to fix it. Thus it was odd to see everyone responsible for the impasse gather at the White House on St. Patrick's Day for a rollicking good party. There were bagpipers and charming young step dancers, delectable little lamb chops and free-flowing Irish whiskey. Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney read his poems (and President Bill Clinton, a big fan, could be seen murmuring the words as Heaney read them). The emotional climax came when Social Democratic and Labour Party leader John Hume, a Nobel laureate himself because of his contributions to peace in Ulster, jumped onto the stage and led the crowd in a sentimental rendition of Danny Boy's second verse--which Clinton also knew by heart.

Why should virtually every Belfast politician of note, as well as Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern and Britain's Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson, assemble in Washington to celebrate an Irish holiday? It was a curious gathering with a serious purpose. Clinton used the same party early in his presidency to bring the warring Ulster factions together and nudge them toward peace. In his final year in office he needs a repeat performance.

Last month Mandelson suspended the province's government after only 72 days of operation because the Ulster Unionists, led by David Trimble, were about to quit in fury over the Irish Republican Army's refusal to start getting rid of its weapons. But the I.R.A. won't contemplate decommissioning while the government is frozen, and meanwhile the level of acrimony has been rising. Just last week, dissident republicans apparently eager to throw the peace process from idle into reverse were caught near Belfast with 230 kg of bomb ingredients. The 1998 Good Friday agreement's May 22 deadline for decommissioning will now almost certainly slip.

Nevertheless, like a squabbling family that manages to stop arguing to attend Christmas dinner at their rich uncle's, the leaders of Ulster seemed to take some sustenance from their immersion in a sea of American good feelings. The most hopeful sign came from Trimble, who said he would be "prepared to recommend to my party that we try again" to enter government even if the I.R.A.'s weapons had not yet been decommissioned, as long as "there is good reason to believe it will work" to produce actual arms soon. Gerry Adams, leader of the I.R.A.'s political wing Sinn Fein, said he was "suspicious that a lot of this is about putting a hard line in a more positive light." Hard-liners in Trimble's own party were suspicious too: they thought he had caved. Perhaps to mollify them in advance of a party council meeting this weekend, Trimble told TIME "there was nothing new" in his position. But permitting a Unionist role in government in return for only an I.R.A.. promise to destroy arms was certainly a softer stance than his most recent insistence on guns before government.

The British and Irish governments, whose Prime Ministers meet again this week on Ulster, have been floating the idea that the I.R.A. could help break the deadlock by pledging never to return to violence. To sweeten the pot for republicans, Britain is signaling it will cut its own military forces in Northern Ireland. Last week security officials announced that the last British batallion in Belfast, 500 men, would be withdrawn. Of course they disclaimed any political motive.

Clinton "has some ideas" he put forward to the parties too, said his top aide on Irish affairs, James Steinberg. But Steinberg and others who took part in the talks last week said while Clinton showed his usual command of Ulster nuance, he mostly tried to make the parties realize it was up to them to be creative. Reg Empey, a senior Unionist negotiator, said Clinton told them he "wants to do something to help but is frustrated because he doesn't know what that is"--and wants them to tell him.

Just getting Adams and Trimble to talk seriously would be a start. At the White House party, Adams worked the crowd like a rock star, glad-handing and beaming as scores of people waited to have their picture taken with him. Ten meters away stood Trimble in his own crowd of well-wishers. The two men never spoke, then or any other time in Washington. But they were both listening when Seamus Heaney read the following lines: "Some are born enlightened. Others have enlightenment thrust upon them."

With reporting by Chris Thornton/Washington