CROSSMAGLEN, NORTHERN IRELAND -- Once you leave the town of Newry behind and push a bit southward, you enter a territory where the queen's writ simply does not run. Every flag is an Irish tricolor and every emblem is that of the Provisional IRA. Roadside shrines display the names and faces of the "Ten Men Dead" -- the Republican hunger strikers of the early 1980s. Circles with diagonal red slashes proclaim the region to be a no-go zone for the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British Army. In the center of Crossmaglen, a large stone monument exalts the most recent martyrs of the struggle. On the other side of the town square, a ludicrously over-fortified command post asserts that there is still a British "presence," but succeeds only in giving physical form to the image of occupation. Helicopters buzzing in the sky, commuting between various military lookouts on isolated hilltops, reinforce the impression. But in Murtagh's pub, as in the rest of the town, with its Sinn Fein "advice center" and green-white-and-gold colors, you are already in a United Ireland.

Since the cease-fire and the renewal of the "peace process" I had heard rumors of a split in the Republican ranks, and of a revolt against Gerry Adams among the hardened combatants of South Armagh. After my visit here I tend to believe them. For one thing, any peace would require the locals of this fierce border region to give up some of what they have won. Why return to the crown what has been wrested from it by force?

It seems that Bernadette Sands, sister of the late Bobby Sands, is emerging as a spokeswoman for all those who fear that Adams and Martin McGuinness have become too soft. In a separate development, a force styling itself the Continuity Army Council (CAC) has defied the IRA cease-fire to mount a number of bombing operations in the border counties. The CAC is identified with a rejectionist political movement, Republican Sinn Fein, led by the veteran nationalist Ruari O'Bradaigh, who dislikes Adams for, among other things, his recognition of the "traitorous" Irish government in Dublin.

In a way, it is odd that Adams and McGuinness are at such pains to deny the rift. For it is precisely the rift that bears out their own claim to have had a change of heart, to take "risks for peace," even to the point of confronting rebels in their own ranks. Then again, Adams doesn't want to go the way of Michael Collins, and hasn't come this far to hear himself called a sellout. For the moment, the risks seem moot: The unionists at the British-sponsored talks simply refuse to speak, formally or informally, to any of the representatives of Sinn Fein, whether elected or not.

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N E X T++P A G E +| The mood in Belfast