The Irish Puzzle

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Explaining away violence is a Gerry Adams specialty. Whenever Irish Republican Army bombs dismember innocent victims, it is Adams, president of the I.R.A.'s political wing, Sinn Fein, who sits down before the microphones and attempts to transform atrocities into regrettable but necessary collateral damage in a just war against British oppression. The calm, reasonable, well- spoken Adams is good at the job.

Last week he was called to an expository task more complicated than usual. In three separate attacks, the I.R.A. had dropped 12 mortar shells into London's Heathrow Airport. Puzzlingly, none of them exploded. The only damage was to British nerves as flights were canceled and police shut down terminals to conduct security sweeps.

But the unexploded shells did shatter a fragile optimism in Britain and Ireland that serious negotiations to settle the 25-year conflict in Northern Ireland were about to begin. Major players in the Roman Catholic-vs.- Protestant struggle had been talking peace since last December, when British Prime Minister John Major and his Irish counterpart Albert Reynolds issued their Downing Street Declaration affirming that both countries would abide by any settlement democratically agreed upon by the people of Ireland, north and south.

The main sticking point was the I.R.A. Would it now agree to lay down its guns and talk? The British government admitted it had been holding secret talks with I.R.A. and Sinn Fein representatives prior to the declaration. Transcripts of notes from the meetings suggested a new willingness to deal with long-festering differences. All that was needed to open full-scale peace talks was a statement from the I.R.A. denouncing violence -- which has not arrived.

Did the Heathrow mortar shells ruin those hopes? Not at all, says Adams. The shells came during a "stalemate" in the process, and the attack might "have an accelerating effect upon the British government." Sinn Fein and the I.R.A. still want what they call "clarifications" from Britain before joining any talks. Until that happens, says Adams, "every so often there will be something spectacular to remind the world" that the conflict continues to boil.

As has happened so often in the past, Adams' measured words somehow turned violence into a plea for peace. His emergence as one of the key men to reckon with in Northern Ireland has brought him a long way from the rough streets of Belfast, where he began his activist career. Only two days before the attacks, he was rambling through the streets of west Belfast in a cold drizzle. He paused in front of a rubble heap, which for him was a monument to a heroic political struggle, not just the remnants of a high-rise public housing project. "These new houses are an improvement," he said, pointing to the neat brick homes surrounding the demolition site. His voice was mellow as he recounted his long battle with British authorities to get the dreary apartment blocks torn down and replaced by more livable bungalows.

Sectarian bombings and assassinations have so dominated the news from Northern Ireland that it is easy to forget how the current cycle of the Troubles began in 1969 as civil rights protests over discrimination against Catholics in jobs, education and housing. But Adams has not forgotten. These were the issues that first drew him into the vortex of political battle.