Ahern steps down

By Paul Hoskins

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Bertie Ahern bowed out on Tuesday after 11 years as Ireland's prime minister, highlighting his role as a peacemaker in Northern Ireland and leaving his successor to tackle his country's troubled economy.

Ahern announced a month ago that he would quit in May to fight corruption allegations that dogged his last year in office.

"The Taoiseach (prime minister), Bertie Ahern, this evening placed his resignation in the hands of the president, Mary McAleese," his office said in a statement.

Ahern spent his last day in office at the site of the Battle of the Boyne, where rival Protestant and Catholic kings of England fought in 1690, a clash that came to define identities in the conflict that killed more than 3,600 people in Northern Ireland in the last three decades of the 20th century.

The hostilities largely ended with the 1998 peace agreement co-brokered by Ahern, followed by the establishment of a power-sharing executive last year.

Ahern, a Catholic whose Fianna Fail party favours a united Ireland, was joined at the opening of a new visitor centre by Northern Ireland First Minister Ian Paisley -- a firebrand Protestant cleric devoted to preserving British sovereignty in the province.

Ahern quit, just a year after winning a historic third successive term, to fight accusations of corruption that risk tarnishing his legacy as a peacemaker.

Until last year Paisley refused even to shake his hand, but on Tuesday the two men grinned as they wielded 17th century swords to cut the ribbon at the visitor centre.