Though he briefly thanked an introductory speaker for complimenting his wife's engagement with Irish issues, including the peace process, and made a glancing reference to her earlier appearance at the Irish American Presidential Forum, the former president made no other allusions to her candidacy.

Instead, he focused upon the Good Friday Agreement, which was reached 10 years ago. He invoked the memory of assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who he said had told him after shaking Yasser Arafat's hand on the White House lawn in 1993, "You do not make peace with your friends."

Clinton suggested that Rabin's sentiment had played a significant role in his decision to issue Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams a visa to come to the U.S. in early 1994. And he praised Adams for having operated "with good faith" afterward, admitting that, "If he hadn't, I would have looked like a fool."

Clinton also referred to the incongruously close working relationship that has formed at the head of Northern Ireland's devolved government between Adams' party colleague Martin McGuinness, an erstwhile IRA commander, and Ian Paisley, once the most hardline of pro-British unionists.

"When Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley came here joined at the hip like Siamese twins, I thought, 'Rabin is smiling down on us from heaven,'" he said.

As to his own role, a soft-voiced Clinton said, "I got a lot more out of this than I gave. It was a joy. Every single minute."

He added that the pleasures even included his first meeting with the famously belligerent Paisley. He merely said hello, he recalled, before being treated to a verbal onslaught:

"For 20 minutes, I got it with both barrels. I didn't have to worry about forgetting my talking points, and falling asleep was not an option."

The former president was not entirely self-deprecating, however. When he spoke about the contribution of his special envoy George Mitchell to the peace process, he referred to the former Senate majority leader as "an inspired choice."

He added that because Mitchell's ancestry included Irish and Lebanese strains, "he was well prepared genetically for this. He understood the poetry and the BS"

Diverting at one point from his memories of the peace process, Clinton alluded to the strength of the economy in the Republic of Ireland and contrasted it with America's state of economic health.

"I expect sometime within the next three years, the Irish Republic might be giving foreign aid to the United States," he said light-heartedly. "Lord knows, we're entitled to it."

After the swearing in over the weekend of a Palestinian unity government, cracks quickly began to appear in the Western diplomatic boycott to which the Palestinians have been subjected since Hamas’ victory in last year’s elections.

Norway’s deputy foreign minister met with Palestinian Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Monday. Britain, Germany and Italy have suggested that their doors are at least ajar to discussions with the Palestinians. And one leftist Israeli politician, Yossi Beilin, has responded positively, suggesting in remarks published yesterday by The New York Sun that the Israeli government should be more amenable to negotiations.

The U.S., for its part, has said that its ban on aid to the Palestinian government will remain intact, but it has also noted that it will not shy away from talks with non-Hamas members of the new coalition.

It is much too early to be celebrating the dawning of a new era, of course. On Monday, an Israeli civilian was shot at a fuel depot about 300 yards from the border with the Gaza Strip. The shooting was claimed by Hamas’ armed wing, which stated that the action was “a response to continued Zionist aggression.”

It is little wonder, given such actions, that Israel is reluctant to engage with the new Palestinian body.

“It is surely a mistake to give legitimacy and recognition to an unreformed extremist,” said Israeli foreign-ministry spokesman Mark Regev, “and it cannot serve the purpose of peace.”

To Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his allies, the changes heralded by the formation of the new government are illusory.

But does the maintenance of a hard-line attitude actually help or hinder Israel’s own interests, and the broader cause of peace in the region? One example from thousands of miles away—the Irish peace process—suggests that such an approach may be both shortsighted and counterproductive.

There are obvious parallels between the current situation in the Middle East and the earliest days of Ireland’s slow and agonizing march toward peace. The formation of the Palestinian unity government, for example, has been greeted with much the same blend of opprobrium and suspicion that met the so-called Hume-Adams talks of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.

That dialogue, between John Hume, then-leader of the moderate Irish nationalist Social Democratic and Labor Party, and Gerry Adams, president of the I.R.A.’s political wing, Sinn Féin, is now almost universally acknowledged to have laid the groundwork for a historic peace agreement in 1998.

At the time, however, Mr. Hume was accused, as the moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is now, of legitimizing unreconstructed terrorists.

Suspicion of Mr. Adams—and calls for his exclusion from political negotiations—were even more vituperative, with one British newspaper, for example, referring to him as “one of … the most formidable enemies to peace in Ireland’s bloodstained history.”

Fortunately for the Irish, the U.S. administration of the time didn’t take the naysayers’ view. President Bill Clinton’s decision to grant Mr. Adams a visa to visit the U.S. in 1994—a move made against the advice of the State Department, the Department of Justice and the F.B.I.—is now seen as crucial in persuading Irish militants to join the political process.

There are many other parallels. Hamas’ election triumph last year was widely seen as a disaster for Israel and for U.S. policy in the region. But those pronouncements of doom echo those that followed the election of imprisoned I.R.A. hunger-striker Bobby Sands to the British Parliament in 1981.

At the time, the Sands result was seen purely as strengthening the I.R.A.’s hand. Later, it came to look a lot more like the pivot upon which the conflict turned: It opened Irish militants’ eyes to the potential of participating in the electoral process while simultaneously helping bring the British to an acknowledgment that the conflict could not be ended purely by military or “security” means.

At present, Israeli politicians are demanding the continued isolation of the Palestinian government, in part because of Hamas’ refusal to explicitly recognize Israel, and because the government’s platform includes an assertion of the right to “resistance in all its forms.”

The Israeli concerns are valid—but they are also eerily reminiscent of the attempts of pro-British politicians to exclude Sinn Féin from political negotiations because the I.R.A. had not declared its ceasefire to be permanent.

Mr. Adams and his comrades have never to this day explicitly stated that the state of Northern Ireland is legitimate, nor have they disavowed the I.R.A.’s campaign. Rather, their actions—at present, Martin McGuinness, a onetime I.R.A. commander, is on the verge of becoming the deputy leader of Northern Ireland’s devolved government—have rendered such semantic points moot.

There are, of course, fundamental differences between Hamas and the Irish Republican movement. Perhaps the most significant is that Hamas triumphed in last year’s elections while unambiguously wedded to its military campaign, whereas the I.R.A.’s armed struggle came to be seen as retarding Sinn Féin’s political ambitions.

Nonetheless, the moment is ripe to encourage Palestinian militants to head down a similar path. Over the weekend, Britain’s Sunday Telegraph reported the release of Hamas commander Salah Arouri from an Israeli jail and quoted him as follows: “We are harmed if we target civilians. At the end of the day, the fruit of military actions is political action. All wars end with truces and negotiations.”

It could have been Mr. Adams talking 15 years ago.

Likewise, even before this weekend’s announcement, Hamas’ decision to take part in elections and to take its seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council was more momentous than perhaps even the group’s members fully appreciated.

Almost every armed struggle is underpinned by grandiose claims of ideological purity. Any engagement with the electoral process erodes those justifications, because it brings the would-be revolutionaries into the messy business of realpolitik, however reluctantly, and makes it more difficult for them to ignore the will of the broad mass of people, who are almost never as radical as the guerrillas themselves.

Making peace with erstwhile violent groups is a delicate business: It requires not merely pressure or concessions, but a nerve-wracking combination of both. But now is the time to engage with the Palestinians.

Yasir Arafat used to talk about a “peace of the brave.” He never showed that bravery himself. Neither Israel nor its friends in the West should be found wanting now.

Like many top New York Republicans, Mr. Pataki is a loyal ally of the Bush administration and its war on terror, but he is also a longtime admirer of Mr. Adams, the charismatic leader of a political party affiliated with the Irish Republican Army. Mr. Adams put Mr. Pataki-and other New York Republicans, such as Long Island Congressman Peter King-in a tough spot several days ago, when he blasted the Bush administration's plans for war on Iraq.

"If war is to be declared," Mr. Adams said, "it should be war against poverty and for equality." With rhetoric like that, one is tempted to ask: Why were Mr. Pataki and other G.O.P. leaders marching around with this guy in the first place?

The surface answer is obvious enough. Mr. Adams is an historic figure who, after decades of bloodshed, helped bring peace to Northern Ireland. Mr. Pataki, meanwhile, has reaped substantial benefits playing up his own maternal Irish roots in a state where Irish Catholics remain an important swing vote in suburban and upstate regions. So, ever since the Clinton administration allowed Mr. Adams to enter the country in the mid-1990's, Mr. Pataki has made sure to schedule plenty of photo ops, especially around St. Patrick's Day.

But one wonders how well Mr. Pataki's relationship with Mr. Adams sits with President Bush. After all, it's an open secret that Mr. Pataki is angling for a job in the Bush administration. Mr. Pataki's leftward lurch during his second term made him few friends among social and fiscal conservatives in the Republican Party. Imagine the fun they'd have passing around photos of Mr. Pataki grinning alongside Mr. Adams-a left-wing, antiwar European whose supporters have, unfairly or not, been linked with terrorist acts on several continents.

Particularly bothersome of late to the Bush administration (and hence trouble for Mr. Pataki) is a trial unfolding in Bogotá, Colombia, where three Irishmen (including a top Sinn Fein aide) stand accused of training left-wing Colombian terrorists. Mr. Adams has said that Sinn Fein had no knowledge of, much less involvement in, the Colombia fiasco. But that didn't prevent the Pataki-friendly (most of the time, anyway) New York Post from running an editorial which cast Mr. Adams as Osama bin Laden's blood brother.

Consider the Murdochian source, Mr. Adams' supporters sensibly argue. But the Post does reflect the sentiments of key G.O.P. supporters. At this delicate time, Mr. Pataki's relationship with Mr. Adams may prove as damaging in Washington as it has been helpful in New York.

Sources within the Pataki administration say they believe the Governor can diplomatically agree to disagree with Mr. Adams on Iraq. Congressman King-who has been talking about running for the U.S. Senate next year-said that Mr. Adams' opposition to the war "certainly doesn't help" the Sinn Fein leader's standing in America. But, he added, Mr. Adams can weather that storm "as long as he doesn't make this into an anti-American attack."

All of this still leaves Mr. Pataki in a bind. On the one hand, with St. Patrick's Day approaching-and with Mr. Pataki's poll numbers plummeting-don't expect the Governor's "Irish strategy" to abate any time soon. Several weeks ago, Mr. Pataki was scheduled to be the featured speaker at a dinner in Dublin (the latest of several trips to the Emerald Isle), but the heightened terror alert contributed to a last-minute cancellation.

Ubiquitous terror alerts, of course, do not work to the advantage of Mr. Adams. Though he has evolved into a widely respected leader, the shadow of the gunman still follows him. Last year, journalist Ed Moloney offered "definitive" proof that Mr. Adams was once a member of the I.R.A. This was significant news, interested observers admitted-after they were done yawning, that is. In the U.S. (and particularly in New York), Mr. Adams' spotty past is not only accepted, but nearly revered.

It is one thing, however, to forgive Mr. Adams past transgressions against the British. (And even that is questionable, given the current warm relationship between Mr. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.) It is quite another matter to vocally oppose war in Iraq and also to remain associated in any way with terrorist escapades in South America.

As Mr. Pataki continues to drop in the polls-thanks to a tanking state economy and looming service cuts-a job with the Bush administration will surely look better and better. But as his pal Gerry Adams could certainly attest, the past may yet come back to haunt him.

Joe Conason will return to this space next week.

Predicting the future in Northern Ireland, whether in the next 24 hours or the next quarter-century, is a business best left to the brave and the foolish. Nearly everything hinges on a meeting of the largest Protestant-Unionist party on Nov. 27, which could either lead to a final agreement or could present yet another obstacle to peace. But all indicators suggest that the energy which Mr. Clinton has invested in Ireland is about to pay off, with dividends for the people of the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain.

Author Jack Holland, a Belfast native and a columnist at the Irish Echo newspaper, summed up the frightening dilemma of Northern Ireland in the 1990's in the title of his new book, Hope Against History . Had Mr. Clinton paid attention to the sobering lessons of the latter rather than cling to promise of the former, he surely would not have involved himself so personally in what so often seemed to be a thankless task. But now, after grueling negotiations chaired by the President's special emissary, former Senator George Mitchell, hope does appear triumphant.

"This is an example of American foreign policy at its best," said Niall O'Dowd, the founding publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper and Irish America magazine. "This hasn't been about sending helicopters into another country. It's about a superpower using its proper influence over two friends, Britain and Ireland."

It ought to be remembered that the President's aggressive, rules-breaking diplomacy in Ireland is the result of no focus group or poll. Irish-Americans rarely if ever ask if a candidate is "good for Northern Ireland"-whatever that might mean. If they did, they surely would not have been among the disaffected Democrats whom Ronald Reagan and George Bush won over throughout the 1980's. Those two Republicans followed the British line on matters Irish, and yet they counted Irish-Americans as an important part of three successful national coalitions.

No, Mr. Clinton's peacemaking is based on qualities not always associated with his White House: idealism, determination, a sense of justice and terrific timing. On the latter score, the Administration got no small bit of help from a group of amateur diplomats in New York, chief among them William Flynn, chairman of Mutual of America, and Mr. O'Dowd. They understood early on in the Clinton years that the time was right for American intervention in a bloody dispute that has baffled a generation of professional diplomats. Long before the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire, the New Yorkers served as an invaluable conduit between Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and the Clinton White House, and helped persuade Mr. Clinton's former national security adviser, Tony Lake, that Mr. Adams was indeed the key to winning a settlement that was unimaginable when the Reagan-Bush White House treated Mr. Adams as an international outlaw. Now, Mr. Adams and Sinn Fein are on the verge of becoming part of a new, multiparty government in Northern Ireland. And the main Unionist leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble, has conceded that Irish nationalists have legitimate aspirations-an assertion that is heresy in Mr. Trimble's Protestant community.

It is an astonishing turn of events, made possible in part through the subtle use of language. For example, Mr. Holland, a keen observer of his native land, noted that at a critical moment in mid-November, the I.R.A. issued a statement stating that it was "committed unequivocally to the search for freedom, justice and peace" in Northern Ireland. "The word 'search' replaced the word 'struggle'" in the I.R.A.'s lexicon, Mr. Holland noted. The shift in language persuaded Mr. Holland that a breakthrough was, in fact, at hand. "And what it means is that as Ireland enters the new millennium, we see the beginning of the end of the I.R.A. as we knew it for most of this century," Mr. Holland said.

History practically shouted that such an outcome was impossible. Hope, however, insisted that the time was right to do what was right.

When Mr. Trimble and Mr. Adams, representing hostile traditions, cultures and communities, broke bread with each other for the first time, they did so in the American Embassy in London, under the watchful eye of Mr. Clinton's emissary, Mr. Mitchell. Those who study Irish history, like Mr. Holland and Mr. O'Dowd, understand what a difficult challenge Mr. Clinton undertook, and how rich the rewards will be.

Predicting the future in Northern Ireland, whether in the next 24 hours or the next quarter-century, is a business best left to the brave and the foolish. Nearly everything hinges on a meeting of the largest Protestant-Unionist party on Nov. 27, which could either lead to a final agreement or could present yet another obstacle to peace. But all indicators suggest that the energy which Mr. Clinton has invested in Ireland is about to pay off, with dividends for the people of the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland and Britain.

Author Jack Holland, a Belfast native and a columnist at the Irish Echo newspaper, summed up the frightening dilemma of Northern Ireland in the 1990's in the title of his new book, Hope Against History . Had Mr. Clinton paid attention to the sobering lessons of the latter rather than cling to promise of the former, he surely would not have involved himself so personally in what so often seemed to be a thankless task. But now, after grueling negotiations chaired by the President's special emissary, former Senator George Mitchell, hope does appear triumphant.

"This is an example of American foreign policy at its best," said Niall O'Dowd, the founding publisher of the Irish Voice newspaper and Irish America magazine. "This hasn't been about sending helicopters into another country. It's about a superpower using its proper influence over two friends, Britain and Ireland."

It ought to be remembered that the President's aggressive, rules-breaking diplomacy in Ireland is the result of no focus group or poll. Irish-Americans rarely if ever ask if a candidate is "good for Northern Ireland"-whatever that might mean. If they did, they surely would not have been among the disaffected Democrats whom Ronald Reagan and George Bush won over throughout the 1980's. Those two Republicans followed the British line on matters Irish, and yet they counted Irish-Americans as an important part of three successful national coalitions.

No, Mr. Clinton's peacemaking is based on qualities not always associated with his White House: idealism, determination, a sense of justice and terrific timing. On the latter score, the Administration got no small bit of help from a group of amateur diplomats in New York, chief among them William Flynn, chairman of Mutual of America, and Mr. O'Dowd. They understood early on in the Clinton years that the time was right for American intervention in a bloody dispute that has baffled a generation of professional diplomats. Long before the Irish Republican Army declared a cease-fire, the New Yorkers served as an invaluable conduit between Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and the Clinton White House, and helped persuade Mr. Clinton's former national security adviser, Tony Lake, that Mr. Adams was indeed the key to winning a settlement that was unimaginable when the Reagan-Bush White House treated Mr. Adams as an international outlaw. Now, Mr. Adams and Sinn Fein are on the verge of becoming part of a new, multiparty government in Northern Ireland. And the main Unionist leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble, has conceded that Irish nationalists have legitimate aspirations-an assertion that is heresy in Mr. Trimble's Protestant community.

It is an astonishing turn of events, made possible in part through the subtle use of language. For example, Mr. Holland, a keen observer of his native land, noted that at a critical moment in mid-November, the I.R.A. issued a statement stating that it was "committed unequivocally to the search for freedom, justice and peace" in Northern Ireland. "The word 'search' replaced the word 'struggle'" in the I.R.A.'s lexicon, Mr. Holland noted. The shift in language persuaded Mr. Holland that a breakthrough was, in fact, at hand. "And what it means is that as Ireland enters the new millennium, we see the beginning of the end of the I.R.A. as we knew it for most of this century," Mr. Holland said.

History practically shouted that such an outcome was impossible. Hope, however, insisted that the time was right to do what was right.

When Mr. Trimble and Mr. Adams, representing hostile traditions, cultures and communities, broke bread with each other for the first time, they did so in the American Embassy in London, under the watchful eye of Mr. Clinton's emissary, Mr. Mitchell. Those who study Irish history, like Mr. Holland and Mr. O'Dowd, understand what a difficult challenge Mr. Clinton undertook, and how rich the rewards will be.

He is, in other words, the antithesis of Gerry Adams, the American media's favorite socialist. Both are brilliant men; both have exhibited great personal courage. But look not for Mr. Hume in slick magazines. He has yet to win an invitation to mix it up with Wall Street's mega-capitalists. He is a quiet man who looks like he has borne more than his share of life's burdens. There is nothing deliciously dangerous about him, nothing to excite the chattering classes. When asked to talk about his life, rather than the peace process, he demurs. He won't talk about himself. No wonder he seems so unfashionable.

Yet Mr. Hume is the man who persuaded Mr. Adams, Sinn Fein and the Irish Republican Army to give up the armed struggle to free Northern Ireland from Britain. Without Mr. Hume's years of constitutional agitation, his wellspring of moral force and his street credibility-inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., he marched for civil rights in Northern Ireland in the 1960's and suffered accordingly at the hands of police-there would be no healing in Northern Ireland.

His name ought to be better known, and his role in bringing peace ought to be celebrated in all the right places in town. And yet here was this distinguished member of the European Parliament sitting down to a modest breakfast to an audience consisting of Newsday 's Dennis Duggan, the New York Post 's irrepressible Steve Dunleavy and your dutiful correspondent. Not a bad group, yours truly excepted, but there wasn't a microphone or a big-foot magazine writer in sight. Later in the day, Mr. Hume met with former U.S. Senator George Mitchell, who mediated the Irish peace talks, and other more glamorous names in the Park Avenue headquarters of Mutual of America Insurance Company. Nevertheless, Mr. Hume's visit lacked the rock-star hype that follows Mr. Adams when he arrives on these shores.

Too bad, for his is a voice that should be heard, for his message is universal. He tells of going to the European Parliament, then in Strasbourg, France, in 1979, and walking across a bridge into what was then West Germany. The crossing he made so easily was ground zero of Europe's two attempts at continental suicide in this century's first 50 years. But by the late 70's, it was at peace and, indeed, it was where the onetime warring parties came together for an experiment that we now nonchalantly accept as the European Union.

"Who could have forecast that we would all be together in this way," he said. "The message of the European Parliament is a message of peace. It is about creating institutions that respect differences among people."

He has been trying to create those sorts of institutions in Northern Ireland for 30 years. When his party assumed political control in his native city of Derry, it began rotating the Mayor's office between the Protestant and Catholic communities. (Like many other Irish and British cities, Derry's Mayor has only symbolic duties.)

Now, with elections to the new assembly in Northern Ireland scheduled for June 25, Mr. Hume hopes to replicate those efforts throughout the scarred province. After years of ceaseless agitation, he wishes to put the past aside. Even the charming Mr. Dunleavy couldn't get him to tell a tale of some childhood horror of growing up Catholic in Protestant-only Northern Ireland.

That Northern Ireland, he makes clear, is over. Without calling attention to it, he speaks of "old Northern Ireland" when talking, in careful generalities, of the place he has spent his life. "Let history," he said, "judge the past." His concern is the future, the beginning of what he calls "the healing process" in a province whose colonial-era religious divisions are not, shall we say, native to the soil.

Unlike your devoted correspondent, Mr. Hume is among the least embittered human beings on the planet. Versed in history and thoroughly aware of its scars, he is determined to ensure a new century of peace and social justice for a place that is pleading for both.

Watch him closely in the coming months. And remember that he is thinking about his walk across the bridge from France to West Germany in 1979.

Sitting directly beneath the portrait of her dead brother, Bernadette Sands-McKevitt officially joined the rancorous battle for the hearts and minds of New York's political potent Irish community. "We don't want to see peace, we want independence," she thundered to hearty applause. "That's the only way there will be peace in Ireland."

Those sentiments, of course, do not reflect the official messages dispatched from Washington, Dublin and London. But they do offer an insight into fiercely held opposition to the Belfast accords in New York, which has long served as the capital of the Irish Republican movement in exile, a place where Gerry Adams was regarded as a hero when even the Irish themselves regarded him as a terrorist.

Trouble in New York could mean trouble for the Irish peace process, regardless of what voters in the Irish Republic and in Northern Ireland decide in a referendum on the peace settlement on May 22. New York remains home to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hard-liners who could form a base of support for a new paramilitary campaign in Northern Ireland. A supporter of the settlement, Gabriel Megahey, who once was the Irish Republican Army's top operative in New York and who served prison time for trying to smuggle surface-to-air missiles to Northern Ireland, warned the O'Lunney's crowd of the huge stakes: "This is the kind of thing that can lead to people shooting people."

Nevertheless, there are indications are that Sinn Féin's spin war on behalf of the settlement may be unraveling. The crowd of 100 activists, the foot soldiers of the republican struggle in New York, cheered on Ms. Sands-McKevitt as she excoriated the peace agreement and the Irish-Americans who helped broker the deal. Many in the audience spent the last quarter-century manning picket lines, organizing back-room fund-raisers and, in some cases, attempting to ship weapons to the Irish Republican Army. They say that Mr. Adams, president of Sinn Féin-the political party with ties to the I.R.A.-has abandoned them, preferring quiet tête-à-têtes in the White House to rallies in the working-class Irish bars of the Bronx and Queens. Held in equal contempt are the New York business leaders-led by Mutual of America chairman Bill Flynn and billionaire philanthropist Chuck Feeney-who escorted Mr. Adams into the corridors of power. They are referred to derisively as "cease-fire soldiers" who wouldn't dirty their hands with Irish matters during the Troubles but who now play auctioneer to the sale of republican principles.

So they were a ready-made audience for Ms. Sands-McKevitt, a 40-ish mother of three who came to New York to rally opposition to the proposed settlement, which leaves the six counties of Northern Ireland in British hands. The peace negotiations, she said, have "been about getting the I.R.A. stopped, not getting the British out" of Ireland.

It's a crude and simplistic message, but it is winning support among grass-roots purists like John McDonagh, a 43-year-old Queens native who has emerged as New York's heckler-in-chief of the Irish peace process. A self-described "diasporado" who has been involved in republican street politics for 20 years, Mr. McDonagh is one of the hosts of a radio program called Radio Free Éireann, heard on Saturday afternoons on WBAI-FM. From that pulpit he bolsters dissidents and relentlessly ridicules Sinn Féin's recent converts. "I'm just giving people information they won't receive elsewhere," Mr. McDonagh said unapologetically. "I'm keeping people informed, in my own way." Mr. McDonagh's way earns him widespread enmity. Just hours after the Good Friday deal was announced, he took to the airwaves using the sound effects of a washing machine-the sound of "republicans spinning in their graves," he explained-and playing songs condemning "Irish traitors." It was a supremely wounding moment, aiming at Mr. Adams a taunt traditionally targeted toward political sellouts.

Rebels From Afar?

Not everyone appreciated Mr. McDonagh's criticism, which is often softened by a keen sense of humor. Mr. Megahey called Mr. McDonagh and berated him on the air. Mr. Megahey bitterly charged that Mr. McDonagh and his fellow dissidents had never put their lives on the line. Mr. Megahey, who is emerging as an important supporter of the settlement based on his record of service to the cause, noted that his republican colleagues in Ireland supported the settlement. "It's mainly among those who haven't been directly involved that you hear criticisms," he said. "There will always be a minuscule quantity who will scream from the heavens, but who ever came out of negotiations with everything they wanted?"

After her speech in O'Lunney's, Ms. Sands-McKevitt settled into a seat in a quiet corner of the bar, just a few tables away from playwright Martin McDonagh, who was celebrating his Broadway hit The Beauty Queen of Leenane . On the table beside her lay a proclamation bearing the seal of New York City, presented to her earlier in the day at City Hall by Council Speaker Peter Vallone. In the boilerplate language of such testimonials, the document saluted a group called the 32 County Sovereignty Committee, which Ms. Sands-McKevitt founded and opposes the Belfast settlement. "We couldn't have written it any better ourselves," she said.

The New York dissidents have been accused by Sinn Féin apparatchiks of, at best, lacking the intelligence to understand the peace process, or, at worst, of advocating a return to war. It's a breathtaking charge from people who themselves still carry a faint whiff of gun smoke. For public consumption, Mr. Adams' supporters in New York downplay the divisions. "It's an emotional issue, even more so when a member of the Sands family is involved," conceded Representative Peter King of Long Island, who publicly supported Sinn Féin long before it was fashionable. "It's not a perfect agreement. You can list hundreds of things that are wrong with it, but there are hundreds of things wrong with life, too."

Irish republicanism in New York is a world of familiar faces, of people defined as much by whom they oppose as by the policies they favor. Much speculation currently focuses on Martin Galvin, a Bronx attorney and former publicity director of Irish Northern Aid, which raises money for the families of Irish republican prisoners. Once the voice of the hard-line republican movement in the United States, Mr. Galvin has fallen from grace with Sinn Féin and was ousted from Noraid in 1995. He conceded that he helped Ms. Sands-McKevitt during her visit to the United States, but he was tight-lipped about his own view of the settlement. After a long silence, he finally sighed: "I'm doing a lot of soul-searching. I would like someone to prove to me that all of the deep reservations that I have about the agreement are unfounded and that I was wrong, but so far that hasn't happened."

Personality clashes and years-old feuds litter New York's republican community and, Mr. King said, greatly influence the schisms. Other Sinn Féin activists cautiously welcome the debate while standing firm with the leadership. "Nobody is happy about this agreement, and no one is holding it up as a panacea," said Oistin MacBride, a respected photographer who has seen his father and brother murdered during the conflict. "Blind faith will get us all killed."

In an argument becoming more personal by the day, Mr. McDonagh has raised the ante with his scathing criticisms of business titans like Mr. Flynn and Mr. Feeney, claiming their only intention is to make a quick buck in a becalmed Ireland. It's a considerable allegation to level against people whose interests in matters Irish go back decades, but Mr. McDonagh remains defiant. "If the violence starts again, Adams will look over his shoulder and his friends won't be there. None of them," he said. (Mr. Flynn did not return a call seeking comment.)

Sinn Féin Spin

As its carefully constructed consensus showed signs of crumbling, Sinn Féin hastily dispatched a delegation to America. The night following the debate at O'Lunney's, Bairbre de Brún, a member of Sinn Féin's negotiating team, gathered supporters at O'Neill's Bar on Third Avenue. It was a comparatively tame affair, the talk limited to advancing on the fronts of social and economic equality, briefly touching on the dissidents and only then to defend Sinn Féin's decision to expel them from the party. Yet even Ms. de Brún must have noted that the loudest cheer of the night followed one woman's condemnation of what she called a "scurrilous" newspaper attack on Bernadette Devlin McAliskey just days earlier. The offending article had been prompted by Ms. Devlin McAliskey's sharp criticisms of Sinn Féin during a speech in the city on April 17.

When one questioner pushed Ms. de Brún on when republicans would "draw the line" in the face of British intransigence, she drew knowing laughter with her reply: "I think you are looking for an answer from another organization, and I can't give that." The reference to the I.R.A. was not lost on her audience. But Ms. de Brún need not have looked too far for that answer: Just days earlier, a Sinn Féin official addressed a secret meeting in Queens of Clan na Gael-a mysterious organization long considered vital to the republican network in the United States. According to one source who was present, the official openly spoke on behalf of the I.R.A. He reportedly said that the I.R.A. had a "military veto" over the settlement. Meanwhile, sources say that Clan na Gael groups in Philadelphia and Chicago are prepared to split over the question of accepting a settlement that concedes a British presence in Northern Ireland-anathema to Irish nationalists for centuries.

Ray O'Hanlon, author of a book called The New Irish Americans , believes that New York will continue to offer a refuge to hard-line dissidents as long as there's a border in Ireland. "New York has always been a focal point for open and occasionally rancorous debate on the subject of Ireland, even when that debate was not possible in Ireland itself," he said. "Obviously, it has been a source for aid and comfort for Sinn Féin, financial and otherwise, and I'm sure it will be equally so for the dissidents."

It was against this rising tide of dissension that Owen Smyth, a burly Sinn Féin councilor from Monaghan, elbowed his way to the front of the crowd at O'Lunney's to face Ms. Sands-McKevitt. Mr. Smyth railed against those he claimed were causing division, adding that he had been imprisoned and survived four assassination attempts but remained committed to Mr. Adams' leadership.

After a few minutes of bitter counterpunching, Mr. Smyth stalked out, a handful of supporters in tow. But, as with all political movements, the crux lies not in those carried along, but in those left behind. In Mr. Smyth's case, he left behind the vanguard of the republican movement in New York, people for whom the war has not yet been won. In Belfast or New York.

Mr. King's dangerous tendency to think independent thoughts does not mean, however, that he is some sort of Rockefeller Republican intent on moving the G.O.P. leftward. He is a plain-spoken, blue-collar conservative populist on social, cultural and economic issues, a soldier in the Republican revolution.

And what, do you suppose, does this conservative Republican member of Congress have to say about the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

"I have found him agreeable, personable and always very friendly," Mr. King said. "He's been very friendly with my family. And in any dealings I've had with him, from Nafta to Bosnia, I've always found that he plays it straight. He's a decent guy to work with."

A decent guy! And where, perchance, has Representative King been these many years? Doesn't he know that he should be protecting his family from President Clinton's various debaucheries? Has he been so burdened with the irrelevant work of lawmaking that he has missed the ravings of the cable-television news crowd? Where was he on the night of April 10, when one of these boom-box political programs featured somebody named Chris Matthews, who apparently believes that any discussion of the President's sex life ought to be discussed in decibel levels intended for the hearing-impaired?

Actually, on the very night in question, while Mr. Matthews was shouting at Susan Estrich about some urgent matter-something to do about all the President's women or some variation on that theme-Mr. King was reviewing some bit of trivial news from some little country across the Atlantic. Earlier that day, Mr. King's longtime friend and ally, Gerry Adams, had joined with other politicians in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Britain in reaching a settlement that may yet bring peace to that tortured province.

Mr. King had spent much of April 10-Good Friday-and the day before talking to Mr. Adams and others involved in the peace process. Mr. King has been working for justice in Ireland from this side of the Atlantic for years, and in pursuit of that worthy goal, he reached out to Mr. Adams long before the Sinn Fein leader became a media celebrity, the subject of glossy-magazine treatments. Mr. King invited Mr. Adams to his Congressional inauguration in January 1993, but Mr. Adams couldn't make it-Washington, in deference to Britain's wishes, wouldn't allow a onetime member of Parliament to visit these shores.

And now, of course, all is changed, changed utterly as a certain Irish poet wrote of another dramatic Irish Easter. Mr. King, the conservative Republican from Nassau County, gives all credit to President Clinton, that nefarious, fornicating schemer whose friends have this unfortunate habit of getting murdered or going to prison or disappearing. (The latter 19 words have been brought to you by the Scarf Family Foundation, which paid this writer an undisclosed sum to consult the archives of the Drudge Report before preparing this column.)

Mr. King said that at about 7:30 on Thursday night, April 9-the deadline for a settlement in Belfast-Mr. Adams told him by telephone that Sinn Fein was prepared to walk out of the talks. Sinn Fein's opposite numbers on the Loyalist side were demanding too much, and apparently getting their way. A chance for peace was on the verge of collapse.

Mr. King placed a few calls to his contacts, letting them know of the urgency. He did a radio interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation from his Washington apartment, and he said that Sinn Fein was on the verge of walking out. A short time later, Mr. Clinton called Mr. Adams twice-Mr. Adams later told Mr. King that the President assured him that Washington would remain intimately involved in this new Irish order. There would be no Sinn Fein walkout after all. "Without those calls, I don't think Adams would have signed on to the settlement," Mr. King said.

There have been suggestions, many of them understandable, that the Clinton Administration will be remembered more for sex and scandal than real achievement. But that may be more a comment on ourselves than on the President. For on a day when Mr. Clinton helped broker peace in a land that has known war for 800 years, people like Mr. Matthews were shouting about the President's private parts.

The issues that concern television's loud mouths mean little to Mr. King, conservative Republican from Long Island. After talking with Wise Guys, he was off to Dublin to talk about matters of war and peace.