Irish stew.

AS THE fine print in the Northern Ireland agreement begins to be studied, the initial euphoria that greeted it begins to evaporate. Early summaries of its complex provisions stressed that each side had given up something and gained something in return. Gerry Adams's Sinn Fein and the constitutional Irish nationalists in John Hume's Social Democratic and Labour Party agreed to the restoration of a power-sharing Assembly in a Northern Ireland still linked to the United Kingdom, and in return David Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party conceded all-Ireland bodies with executive powers. Most observers saw such compromises as justified by the prospect of "lasting peace." Even the deal's reasonable critics argued only that peace had been bought at a high moral price in placing democratic politicians and terrorists on the same plane.

But the central and most contentious questions remain. The executive powers of the North - South bodies, for instance, are left to be determined by the Northern Ireland Assembly, a body likely to contain both Gerry Adams and his unionist counterpart, the Rev. Ian Paisley. These crucial questions are to be decided six months after the twin referenda on the agreement in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. So voters will be asked to endorse a pig in a poke -- a grave weakness when democratic legitimacy is meant to be the shield against the resumption of violence.

Also, the compromises lean heavily in a nationalist direction. All that Sinn Fein, the SDLP, and the Irish government have really conceded is the self-evident fact that Irish unity cannot be achieved in the near future. Sinn Fein has not conceded (although the other two have) that Irish unity can be achieved only with the consent of a Northern majority. All three, moreover, continue to stress that Irish unity remains an inevitable historical development. The provisions amending the Irish constitution -- the concrete "concession" to David Trimble -- treat consent almost as a means whereby a united Ireland shall be brought about.

On the other hand, the unionists have conceded not just their aspiration to be governed like the rest of the United Kingdom but also the practical arrangements of how Northern Ireland is to be governed today: all-Ireland bodies exercising some powers over the North; power-sharing rather than normal majority rule in the Assembly; a Sinn Fein member (probably Gerry Adams) in the Northern Ireland Cabinet; and so on.

At this stage, war-weary unionists would probably accept the agreement if it looked likely to preserve the current partial peace. But its security provisions are dubious. Six private armies continue to operate in the province. There is no clear agreement to decommission the Provisional IRA's (or any other group's) stockpile of guns, bombs, plastic explosives, even rocket launchers. It is quite possible, therefore, that such weapons will still be in terrorist hands when, in two years' time, IRA and Protestant paramilitary prisoners -- all serving time for serious and often horrifying crimes from knee-capping to mass murder -- are due to be released onto the streets. Gerry Adams might become a member of the Northern Ireland Cabinet without the IRA's having surrendered so much as a single baseball bat.

For these reasons a substantial segment of unionist and Protestant opinion will resist the agreement. The political momentum generated by both the initial "peace" euphoria and the involvement of international celebrities such as President Clinton may still ensure that the referendum will pass in Northern Ireland. But a landslide is needed to give full political legitimacy and permanence to so flawed a settlement. And depending on what happens between now and May 22 -- both Sinn Fein and the Unionists are holding conferences on the settlement -- it may pass only barely or, worse, by an unstable majority composed of almost all Catholics plus a minority of Protestants. If public support later collapsed, unionists and nationalists would return to their cold civil war, the IRA and the Protestant paramilitaries to their hot one.

The only hope of ensuring that the Stormont settlement ultimately succeeds is to keep the promise of the peace process: to halt political violence, by negotiation if possible, by an all-Ireland security crackdown on terrorists if necessary. That may require sacrificing elements in the agreement -- halting the release of terrorists, for instance -- and risking some parties walking away from it. The alternative is to see the peoples of Northern Ireland walking away from it.