We first talked to Sinn Féin's president Gerry Adams a decade ago. Northern Ireland was then a battle zone in a war that had waged for nearly 1000 years to decide who would rule all of Ireland. The British who had once dominated had seen their control reduced to the province of Ulster. And for the past 30 years the tenacious Irish Republican Army has tried desperately to drive them out of this last bastion of the empire.

Gerry Adams emerged as leader of Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA, in the late Seventies. He was described by the British as a murderous thug, and a front man for terrorists. He was arrested and convicted of terrorist activities without benefit of trial, and served four and a half years in the notorious Long Kesh prison. He was shot and nearly killed by pro-British supporters on the steps of the Belfast Court House. Adams was so feared and despised by the British that the government had banned his voice from British television and radio, insisting that it be dubbed over during all newscasts.

PLAYBOY, too, ran afoul of British censorship and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in our first interview with Adams. All copies of PLAYBOY exported to the British Isles were seized and held until three pages of the interview with Adams, Sinn Féin press secretary Danny Morrison and an active-duty IRA Provo were torn out. After a protracted court fight, PLAYBOY, under strenuous protest, allowed the offending pages to be removed. Our correspondent Morgan Strong, who conducted the interview (and this one as well), was subject to arrest for violating antiterrorist laws, should he ever return to Britain.

But times have changed. Adams, once denied entry to the U.S., has been a guest of President Clinton at the White House. He has been elected to the British Parliament but refuses to take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, and he has met with his former enemies to begin the painful process of peace talks. He was rumored to have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But Adams' archenemy, the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble, got it instead. All in all, things are looking up for Northern Ireland, Adams and the hoped-for peace.

But only days after the interview was conducted in Belfast, one of the worst terrorist attacks in the history of the conflict took place in the town of Omagh, west of Belfast. Twenty-eight people were killed and more than 200 were injured in a car-bomb attack in the village marketplace. We arranged another interview with Adams to discuss the aftermath.

Q 1

PLAYBOY: The "troubles," as they are referred to in Ireland, have gone on for nearly a thousand years. Are you any closer to peace?

Gerry Adams: It is my conviction that we are going to get peace from the talks. I stay very conscious of the fact that we are going to have reversals and ups and downs, but we will get there. I think all the difficulties are part of the terrain we have to cover. But we haven't got a peace settlement yet.

Q 2

PLAYBOY: The process is agonizingly slow. David Trimble, your opposite in the peace talks and the leader of the pro-British Ulster Unionists, refused to speak with you. Then there was the terrible tragedy of Omagh. Why does it require more slaughter, in a place infamous for slaughter of innocents, to get you together?

Gerry Adams: Trimble wouldn't speak to me, even to say hello. Until Omagh. The smart thing would have been to get behind the peace process, to consolidate the pro-peace vote within his party earlier. I mean, President Clinton said on St. Patrick's Day that it is not a concession to be civil to your enemy.

We should have been talking a long time ago. It should not have taken another incident. You really have to put that question to Trimble. But I think the reason he finally agreed to talk with me had to do with the number of civilians killed. And also because it happened at a time when there was a clear alternative to move forward--an alternative that the majority of people in Ireland support.

Q 3

PLAYBOY: Have Trimble and the pro-British Unionists become any more flexible because of this?

Gerry Adams: I think everything is relative. The answer to your question is no. He remains dogged in his refusal to fulfill his commitments under the Good Friday agreement. It is positive that we are meeting and listening to each other, and that we are being exposed to each other's views. Though the discussions have so far not resolved the matters troubling the peace process, the discussions themselves are valuable. But we have not made progress on a number of critical issues.

Q 4

PLAYBOY: Why is Trimble choosing to obstruct the peace process?

Gerry Adams: The Unionists are dictating the pace, and they want the pace to be very slow. When we got to close quarters with the British establishment, the people who have been running this place, I said that it was going to be a grudge match. And that's what it is every single day--a continuous battle, because they are against change. They can obstruct and delay all the things they fear: political and cultural rights for the Irish here. They see it as a fight to the death, a fight to remain the privileged class. We have to be determined in our just and reasonable demands.

Q 5

PLAYBOY: World opinion seems to support the peace process and some form of equity for the Irish Catholic portion of the population. Why would Trimble and the Unionists resist? After all, he has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. You would think he'd try to make it appear that he deserves it.

Gerry Adams: They resist because they believe in what they're doing and because they are fighting for their way of life and their dominance over the province and its people. And because, and this is a big danger, if they delay it long enough people may think the tragedy is over in Ireland. The awful things that are happening around the world--terrible loss of life in Honduras and Nicaragua, the war in Kosovo--make the struggle here seem small. I am trying, in traveling to other parts of the world, to remind people that the struggle here is by no means over.