As Londonderry votes yes, the populations on both sides nervously embrace their new future

By BARRY HILLENBRAND /LONDONDERRY

ondonderry was where it all started. More than 30 years ago a nascent Catholic civil rights movement decided to take on the Protestant establishment which had dominated the city's politics for centuries. Demonstrations degenerated into riots, pitting protesters against the police. Ultimately the city became the site of pitched battles between the British Army and armed gangs of the Irish Republican Army. The Troubles, as they became known, quickly spread to the rest of Northern Ireland. But many in Londonderry, the province's second largest city, took a perverse pride in being on the cutting edge of revolution and mayhem, a center for opposition and obstinacy. Its writers and intellectuals--on both sides of the sectarian divide--churned out reams of material defending the struggle. In 1972, British paratroopers killed 13 civilians in "Bloody Sunday," one of the defining events of the Troubles. The bombers and terrorists retaliated with a vengeance, transforming large tracts of the hilly precincts of the old and proud city into blackened shells. Londonderry was inextricably linked to sectarian violence. Even its name is contentious: Protestants call it Londonderry, a name it acquired in the 17th century; Catholics insist on using the original name, Derry.

Now, as a sign of the changes which have taken place in Northern Ireland in recent years, Londonderry wants to be known as the city where peacemakers have begun to work their magic. Last week, its citizens voted overwhelmingly in favor of the peace agreement that was hammered out in Belfast in April. "People have been worn down by violence," says Mayor Martin Bradley. "They now realize that there is no need for it and see the economic benefit of living together."

The look of the city now reflects its relative tranquillity. Gone are the bleak "two-up, two-down" tenements in the Catholic Bogside and Protestant Fountain areas, which were free-fire zones in the '70s and '80s. In their place are substantial, even charming, public housing units. The center of Londonderry is filled with boutiques, restored Georgian buildings and the gentle buzz of a city on the upswing. Even the tourists are back.

A peace of sorts came early to Londonderry. In the early '90s, while sectarian murders and bombings multiplied around the province, an informal cease-fire gradually took hold within the city. "Both sides [the British army and the I.R.A.] realized that they could not win a military victory," says Donncha MacNiallais, a former I.R.A. member who became a community worker in the Bogside after serving 10 years in prison on charges of possession of weapons. The letup in violence in Londonderry reflected a change in strategy being devised by Sinn Fein, the political wing of the I.R.A. According to the new thinking, a united Ireland would be won through politics, not violence. Ultimately the I.R.A. and the Protestant paramilitary organizations declared a cease-fire in all of Northern Ireland and work on a permanent peace agreement began.

To encourage the move away from violence, Britain, the United States and the European Union poured money into Northern Ireland to fund community groups and self-help programs--a form of pacification through co-option. Now, in central Londonderry, every other street corner seems to house the offices of some worthy center dispensing advice, building community awareness and self-confidence and--it is ardently hoped--fostering peace. Most of the projects are highly laudable, especially the ones designed to help young people learn to use computers and acquire other employment skills. Most heartening are the cross-community projects which mix Catholics with Protestants. Teresa McKeever, the manager of a parent and toddler association in Creggan, a Catholic district in Londonderry, brings some of the mothers and children from her area to join in a weekend in the country with mothers and children from Tullyally, a Protestant area. The talk is mostly non-political, but, says McKeever, "It's really all about the future. I can't lose my fears and suspicions overnight. Maybe I never can, but how can my son grow up to hate someone he had such a good time playing with?"

Five years ago it would have been nearly impossible for women from working class neighborhoods like Creggan and Tullyally to mix even as tentatively and nervously as they have. The women admit that it would be difficult to get their husbands to relax in mixed Protestant-Catholic company. They haven't even tried to bring them together.

In business circles around London-derry and in some middle class communities, Protestants and Catholics work together and do some socializing, but even that is constricted by geography. Since the beginning of the Troubles, Londonderry has become increasingly ghettoized. More than 20,000 Protestants have fled the central section of the city on the west bank of the River Foyle for the safety of the largely Protestant communities on the east bank. So drastic was the exodus that some in the Catholic community worried that the west bank of Foyle would become entirely Catholic. They sent Christmas cards to residents in the Fountain area, the last remaining Protestant enclave, urging them to stay in their homes.

Yet for all the outward signs of progress toward reconciliation--and the acceptance of the new peace agreement--most residents of Londonderry are nervous about their future. The veneer of civility which passes for peace is far too thin for anybody to be confident that the Troubles are completely and irrevocably in the past. "Remember," says Glen Barr, a former Protestant politician who now heads one of the most progressive self-help community groups, "you have nearly three generations of young people in this country who have gone through a war with their neighbors as their enemy. Hate and fear are inbred, and just because people have stopped fighting does not mean that they are gone."

From time to time ugly sectarian violence shatters the calm of Londonderry. In 1996 riots broke out protesting the annual parades of the Apprentice Boys, an association of Protestants who commemorate the bravery of young men who defended Londonderry in 1668 against a siege by Catholic James II.

In recent weeks the debate over the referendum was acrimonious and bitter, once again showing how deep are the divisions in Northern Ireland. Yet the hope is that the new political structures set out in the agreement will allow these differences to be worked out peacefully. "This remains a very sectarian society," says Eamonn Deane, editor of Fingerpost, a London-derry monthly magazine. "We first have to learn to coexist and get through the day without damaging each other. Once people feel safe, then we can work on building a pluralistic society where people can mingle with ease." They might even agree on a name for their city.