
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, December 6, 1993                   TAG: 9312060008
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: DICK POLMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: DUBLIN, IRELAND                                LENGTH: Medium

MYTHS ASIDE, IRISH NOT EAGER TO CLAIM NORTH

Fortified by his noontime jolt of Irish coffee, Sean O'Malley dredged up the memory of his first trip to Northern Ireland. His eyes widened as he spoke, and it wasn't from the caffeine.

"So frightening," he said. "It was like `Ach, get me out of here.' Driving from the south to the border at night, with soldiers watching me.

"Most people here aren't interested in the politics of Northern Ireland," he said. "If folks are dying up there, our reaction is, `We don't want anything to do with that. We don't want our world disturbed.' "

But doesn't the dream of a united Ireland burn like an ember in the breast of every Irish Republic citizen? And what about the Irish Constitution, which explicitly stakes a territorial claim to the North?

No problem, shrugged O'Malley. "We'd be willing to give up the territorial claim in exchange for peace."

Such talk is far removed from the romantic legends that color the national character. It's still widely assumed, especially abroad, that the southern republic wants to unite - or wants to say so, at least. In the North, after decades of violence, the Irish Republican Army now hopes that the British, as part of the peace process, will endorse an Irish "aspiration" for unity.

Pollsters now report that only 28 percent of the southern electorate wants to keep the territorial claim, even at the expense of peace; two years ago, the figure was 58 percent. And 81 percent now believe that the status of Northern Ireland should not change without the consent of the pro-British Protestant unionists.

The Irish government has sensed this mood shift. The foreign minister, Dick Spring, first hinted on Oct. 28 that the government might be willing to modify the Constitution's territorial claim as a gesture to the British and the unionists.

And on Sunday, Spring was optimistic, saying there is a chance for peace by Christmas or very near it - adding, "We in the republic must be prepared to recognize and to preserve and protect the rights of Unionists as British subjects."

by CNB