N. IRELAND VOTERS OVERWHELMINGLY BACK PEACE PLAN.

Byline: Fawn Vrazo Knight Ridder Newspapers

More than 71 percent of Northern Ireland's voters have said yes to a historic peace agreement for their troubled province, sending a loud message to politicians and paramilitaries alike that they want an end to 30 years of Catholic and Protestant bloodshed.

In the north, where 81 percent of voters turned out, 71.2 percent voted for the accord. In the Republic of Ireland to the south, an even higher 94 percent backed the agreement and turnout was 56 percent.

As the results of the Friday vote were counted and then announced Saturday afternoon in Belfast's cavernous King's Hall, a huge roar went up among peace negotiators, some of whom wiped away tears.

The Rev. Ian Paisley, the province's most outspoken anti-Catholic and its strongest campaigner against the peace plan, had come to make a speech deriding the outcome. Instead, Paisley found himself drowned out by boisterous Protestant campaigners who shouted, ``Go back to Jurassic Park!'' and sang a goodbye chant of ``Cheerio! Cheerio!'' as Paisley and his supporters left the hall.

It was a day of deep emotion and relief for Northern Ireland's politicians, ranging from the Irish Republican Army-allied Sinn Fein party to the moderate Ulster Unionist Party. Political leaders themselves seemed awed by the historic import of what they had achieved.

``I know now that we are on our way to something new; I know my children will be able to walk the streets of this place and feel a real sense of belonging,'' said a tearful Women's Coalition Party member, Ann Carr, a Protestant whose Catholic husband survived an attack by Protestant paramilitaries.

``People throughout this island have voted to change,'' said Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams. ``There's a lot of hope out there, and now we have to deliver on that.''

Many hurdles ahead

Despite the overwhelming vote for the agreement in the north, almost as many hurdles lie ahead for the new pact as it has overcome.

There already are disagreements over the size of the Northern Ireland Protestant unionist vote backing the agreement. Paisley and other Protestant militants Saturday claimed 56 percent of Ulster's unionists voted no. David Trimble and other UUP leaders, who campaigned for the agreement, said it won the support of 60 to 62 percent of all unionists. British government officials said most unionists supported it.

``In my view there has been a democratic vote - the majority of both communities have said yes,'' said Northern Ireland Secretary Marjorie Mowlam, one of the chief politicians behind the agreement's success.

Government vote counters did not break down the 71 percent yes vote into Catholics and Protestants.

But if less than half of unionists supported the agreement, it could face disaster on June 25 when elections are held for the new assembly. Supporters of hard-line Protestant parties are counting on widespread unionist support as they run for seats in the assembly; with sufficient numbers, they could wreck the workings of the assembly and the peace agreement would fail.

Even without interference from hard-line unionists, the assembly faces failure unless the UUP agrees to work with its historic enemy, Sinn Fein. Because of the IRA's continuing refusal to turn in any of its weapons, UUP negotiators never shared so much as a single word with Sinn Fein negotiators during the two-year course of peace negotiations and show no sign of willingness to work with Sinn Fein in the new assembly.

Sinn Fein leader Adams on Saturday gave no indication the IRA would decommission any weapons to help break the political impasse.

``I want to see all the guns taken out of Irish politics,'' Adams said. ``I want to see the decommissioning of Protestant Orange Order parades, prisoners released. . . . But I'm not using that as an obstacle. I'm saying let's come to this with a mind to resolve all these issues.''

Bitter history

For the first time in Northern Ireland's 77-year history, there is now political and public agreement on a way to end the divisions created by the island's 1921 partition into an independent 26-county south and a six-county British-controlled north.

Those divisions erupted into an intractable bloody conflict in 1969, when Northern Ireland Catholics began protesting their treatment at the hands of the Protestant-dominated Northern Ireland government.

In the ensuing three decades, the Catholic IRA grew into a fearsome paramilitary force and Protestant paramilitary groups grew in strength to confront the IRA. Nearly 3,600 people - more than half of them civilians - were killed by bullets and bombs. No one under the age of 30 in the troubled province has known peace, save for periodic cease-fires declared by the IRA.

Under the agreement approved by the island's voters, political leaders hope to put Northern Ireland's bloodshed in the past with several carefully balanced proposals.

Protestants are assured of continuing British rule over the province for the time being. But Catholics are assured that Northern Ireland will unite with Ireland when and if the day comes that a majority of voters approve the change.

Protestants will see the return of the Northern Ireland assembly that was disbanded by the British government in 1972. But with a carefully weighted ``consensus'' system of voting, the Catholic community will be assured of an equal vote in the new assembly even though a majority of Northern Ireland's residents are Protestant.

Catholics will see the introduction of cross-border government bodies between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland that may lay the foundation for a united Ireland of the future. But Protestants won a vote from the Republic of Ireland that it will give up words in its 1937 constitution claiming the six counties of the north as its own.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

The next steps in implementing the Northern Ireland peace accord:

ASSEMBLY ELECTION

The election for the new 108-seat Northern Ireland Assembly is scheduled for June 25, with the campaign and vote providing an immediate test of whether the public wants to be represented by moderates or hard-liners.

Assembly members will select a 12-member administration, called the Executive, drawn from all major parties.

LEGISLATION

Lawmakers in the British Parliament in London must pass legislation authorizing the transfer of powers from the government's Northern Ireland Office to the new Belfast Assembly. Other legislation will set the parameters for the Assembly election.

The Irish parliament in Dublin must pass several laws relating to the North-South Council, which will bring together lawmakers from Belfast and Dublin for joint policy making across Ireland. The Irish parliament also must approve the amendment of its constitution so that it no longer makes a territorial claim to Northern Ireland.

--- Associated Press

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

PHOTO Martin McGuinness, left, and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein show glee Saturday at voters' support of the Northern Ireland peace plan.

Max Nash/Associated Press

BOX: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (see text)