Northern Ireland begins power-sharing

By Adrian Croft

BELFAST (Reuters) - Northern Ireland's Protestant and Roman Catholic leaders, arch-foes during decades of bloodshed, launched a new power-sharing government in the British province on Tuesday aiming to put a final end to violence.

The government headed by firebrand Protestant cleric Ian Paisley completes a remarkable transformation of Northern Ireland from a symbol of violence and religious hatred into a peaceful, thriving community.

Paisley and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness, his former enemy and now deputy first minister, took a pledge of office at a surprisingly light-hearted ceremony at the imposing Stormont parliament building outside Belfast.

The government, which will oversee day-to-day affairs, will help to ensure stability in the province which, since a 1998 peace deal, has largely ended 30 years of sectarian conflict that killed 3,600 people.

The party leaders and guests including the British and Irish prime ministers and a U.S. delegation with Irish-American Senator Edward Kennedy underscored the momentous, historic nature of the event.

"From the depths of my heart I can say to you today that I believe Northern Ireland has come to a time of peace, a time when hate will no longer rule," Paisley said.

McGuinness said it was a historic day, noting: "What we're going to see today is one of the mightiest leaps forward that this process has seen in almost 15 years."

Violence in Northern Ireland saw British soldiers in the streets in combat gear and a concerted campaign of gun and bomb attacks by the Irish Republican Army, which claimed about half the victims in their fight to break away from British rule.