IRA Ceasefire: IRA declares peace: Caution rather than revelry greets announcement as Ulster tries to shake off 25 years of terror

PEOPLE did not dance in the streets. They said: 'I'll believe it when I see it.' They said: 'I wonder what the murdering bastards will get out of it.' They said: 'It's a con.'

Most of these things they said to themselves, or in safe company. To react in a particular way was a political act, which could be dangerous or look foolish.

Over the years the optimists in Belfast have dwindled to a tiny band, much patronised by everyone else. For most, the carapace of cynicism is so thick that they have not yet admitted, even to themselves, the significance of the IRA's announcement that it was laying down its arms from midnight. Because of all the layers of suspicion, and because this is a zero-sum conflict, the immediate reactions were first to establish that it really is over, and second to work out who won.

Unionists and the British Government want it carved in tablets of stone that the stoppage really is permanent. The government in Dublin is satisfied already. The IRA will presumably in time satisfy London that it means what it says, but Unionists will not be convinced. They will say that since the IRA guns and Semtex are still out there somewhere, the republicans must still be regarded as an armed movement and excluded from politics. The mistrust between Unionists and republicans will last for generations.

Yesterday's business was primarily between the IRA and the British Government, and it is here that the business of permanency is to be sorted out. The Unionist community is poised, uncertain whether to accept the words of James Molyneaux, leader of the Ulster Unionists, or to believe the Rev Ian Paisley's prophecies of treachery.

Mr Paisley, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, said: 'I don't see in the document any renunciation of violence, I hear the salute to murderers. I see no suggestion whatsoever of a permanent cessation of violence.'

In notably calmer tones, Mr Molyneaux urged Mr Major not to accept the statement yet because it did not go far enough. The Prime Minister had 'no option' but to reject the IRA statement until it agreed the halt was permanent.

Mr Major's own view was that 'we need to be clear that this is indeed intended to be a permanent renunciation of violence - that is to say, for good'. The Unionists' final verdict will help decide whether the loyalist paramilitaries again attack Catholic pubs, or whether they decide to give the peace a chance and try to get their own boys home from the prisons. Many lives could depend on this decision.

In the meantime, the point about permanency will either be quickly settled or develop into the kind of stubborn stalemate which has characterised so much of the peace process. Many lives could depend on that too.

Yet up in west Belfast - among the hundreds who turned out at a hastily-arranged rally to hear speeches from Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness - no one was in any doubt: it was over. The IRA campaign, the major part of the violence through the years, has run its course. Mr Adams was clapped and cheered and given flowers when he appeared. He was cheered when he said the prisoners should be released, and again when he said they would one day get their republic. He praised the IRA to the skies and praised the people of west Belfast, who remained undefeated despite all Britain had thrown at them. But he did not claim victory; he did not tell them they had won.

He said that the core issues had not yet been resolved. This, lightly encoded, means the IRA campaign had stopped without achieving many of its aims including, crucially, that of extracting a British declaration of intent to withdraw.

Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness will now argue for this at the conference table, rather than seeking to bring it about through force. The crowd applauded, but it was all slightly forced. The Sinn Fein woman who chaired the rally, who is noted for her generally unsmiling countenance, uncharacteristically wore a fixed smile. She told them: 'One thing we all know is that the struggle is not over. We are into a new and important phase of this struggle.' They dutifully applauded, but it was clearly putting a brave face on things.

Mr Paisley may think the republicans have won, but the people who stood in the street plainly did not. These are proud people. One of them years ago coined the phrase: 'God made the Catholics and the Armalite made them equal.' The new proposition being put to them by Mr Adams is that his presence in politics will fulfil the function of the Armalite. Yesterday they showed much trust in him, but there is less than full commitment to his argument.

Even if the import of the day had been more clearcut, it would not have been a time for the sort of jubilation which attended, for example, the fall of the Berlin Wall. There has been too much loss, too many funerals, too many widows and orphans for that type of celebration. Besides, too many issues remain unresolved, too many divisions remain, too many things could yet go wrong.

The South are world champions at revelry; northern culture has always been grimmer, and a quarter of a century of division and death has done nothing to improve that. This may not be the end: there will probably be more deaths before armed conflict can be replaced by mere political controversy.

A momentous point, however, has been passed in this painful process: the IRA has stopped and says it does not intend to start again. Realists will dwell on all the things that can still go wrong, but perhaps yesterday was the day when it became safe to join the optimists and to accept that Ulster is moving slowly and awkwardly, but unmistakably, towards peace.

Reports and analysis, pages 2 - 8

(Photograph omitted)