"New Sense of Moderation"

NORTHERN IRELAND

Northern Ireland does not have elections very often, and it is probably just as well. Last time around, Belfast officials considered calling out the British army before police in armored cars finally quelled 3,000 rioters, who were tossing lumps of pig iron and Molotov cocktails. But last week, as the country went to the polls to elect a new Parliament, the atmosphere was remarkably subdued.

Tickle, Don't Twist. "The reason," exulted Prime Minister Terence O'Neill, "was this new sense of moderation." By that he meant the great easing in tensions between the country's pro-British Protestant majority and pro-Eire Catholic minority. Fading at last are the old hatreds that date back 45 years to the Troubles, when British Black and Tans hunted down the guerrillas of the Irish Republican Army. In fact, the emotional climate has so changed that the chairman of the pro-Eire Nationalist Party, Londonderry Businessman Eddie McAteer, counseled his once fiery followers: "No more unsuccessful insurrections, please. It is still risky to twist the British lion's tail. Just tickle it."

Prime Minister O'Neill, 51, who leads the pro-British Unionist Party, has shrewdly helped quiet the pro-Eire agitation by doing earlier this year what no other Ulster P.M. ever dared do: he invited Ireland's Premier Sean Lemass for lunch in Belfast. Many of O'Neill's supporters were outraged, but the dapper, six-foot aristocrat blithely ignored his Orangemen's indignation. "I hoped to establish more normal relations with our southern neighbors," he said coolly. "Since we share the same island, this is surely sensible."

With the unification issue no longer so heated, the campaigning centered on more relevant topics, notably Northern Ireland's chronic economic problem. O'Neill pointed proudly to the many foreign firms that he has lured to Northern Ireland, to a declining unemployment rate, to a diversifying economy no longer solely dependent on shipbuilding and weaving, and to an annual per-capita income that has risen from $779 to $980 in the 3 1/2 years since he succeeded aging Lord Brookeborough as Prime Minister.

Landslide Victory. When the votes were counted, O'Neill's party was back in with a landslide, having won 36 of the Parliament's 52 seats. The Nationalists retained their nine seats, but the Irish Labor Party, which is informally allied to the British Labor Party, lost two seats, ending up with only two. All of which meant that O'Neill would probably have five full years to keep Northern Ireland moving. It also meant five easy years for the Prime Minister's chauffeur, for O'Neill likes to wheel around his official black Humber him self. The chauffeur sits beside him on the front seat.

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