Sein Fein

It's been 30 years since a Protestant mob showed up with guns at Kathy Nolan's door, ordered her family out and then burned down the street. But it's the first thing the Roman Catholic mother of four remembers when asked whether the time has come for the Irish Republican Army to hand over its weapons, what locals term "decommissioning." "In 1969, there was no one to stop the loyalists," she says, claiming Protestant police officers did nothing to intervene.

It's been 30 years since a Protestant mob showed up with guns at Kathy Nolan's door, ordered her family out and then burned down the street. But it's the first thing the Roman Catholic mother of four remembers when asked whether the time has come for the Irish Republican Army to hand over its weapons, what locals term "decommissioning." "In 1969, there was no one to stop the loyalists," she says, claiming Protestant police officers did nothing to intervene.

Northern Ireland's born-again hopes for peace get an early test today in London when British Prime Minister Tony Blair woos the skeptical leader of the divided province's Protestant majority. David Trimble, who heads the mainstream pro-British Ulster Unionist Party, is key to Blair's hopes that an Irish Republican Army cease-fire that went into effect Sunday can lead to a negotiated settlement ending three decades of sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland's born-again hopes for peace get an early test today in London when British Prime Minister Tony Blair woos the skeptical leader of the divided province's Protestant majority. David Trimble, who heads the mainstream pro-British Ulster Unionist Party, is key to Blair's hopes that an Irish Republican Army cease-fire that went into effect Sunday can lead to a negotiated settlement ending three decades of sectarian bloodshed in Northern Ireland.