IRA Truce Reportedly Near, Putting Protestants on Edge : Northern Ireland: Pro-British majority fears union with south. But Irish leader sees ‘new beginning.’

BELFAST, Northern Ireland —  Reports that the IRA is about to call a cease-fire after a quarter-century of bloodshed put nerves on edge Tuesday in Northern Ireland’s majority Protestant community.

Expectations of a breakthrough rose as the United States granted single-entry visas to veteran Irish Republican Army member Joseph Cahill and Patrick Treanor, a member of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing.

Arriving in New York, Cahill said it was a private visit.

But State Department spokesman Mike McCurry said the visas were issued “to enable Sinn Fein officials to garner support in the United States for an end to the violence in Northern Ireland.”

In Dublin, Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds declared, “I believe we are poised for peace and in a very short time we will be able to make an entirely new beginning on this island.”

It was Reynolds’ most upbeat assessment of the conflict in Northern Ireland since he and British Prime Minister John Major unveiled their Downing Street Declaration peace blueprint Dec. 15.

That enthusiasm was not shared in Protestant districts of Belfast, where any agreement acceptable to the IRA is automatically suspect.

“Sure, the English want rid of us. They’ll do a deal with the IRA if the loyalist people let them. But we won’t let them,” said Jimmy Creighton, a Protestant community worker in Belfast’s pro-British Glencairn district.

But Reynolds sought to reassure anxious Protestant political leaders and wary extremist groups that the peace plan would not force them into a union with Ireland, the goal of the IRA and Sinn Fein.

In the December blueprint, the British and Irish governments agreed that there would be no change in Northern Ireland’s status without the consent of a majority of its people. They also said Sinn Fein could not participate in peace talks unless the IRA permanently halted violence.

Speculation about an imminent truce became intense after Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said Monday that he had met with IRA leaders and told them the time was right to “break the political, constitutional and military stalemate and create the potential to eradicate the underlying causes of conflict.”

Speculation had swirled that a truce was likely to be declared late Tuesday or today.

Most commentators predicted a temporary or indefinite truce, but a growing minority said the IRA might take the plunge London and Dublin have demanded and declare its 25-year-old war over.

Preacher-politician Ian Paisley warned that any sellout of the pro-British community would propel Northern Ireland into civil war--after a guerrilla conflict that has killed more than 3,200 people.

The IRA’s last major truce, in 1975, was partly brought down by a campaign of killings by Protestants determined to end any British dialogue with Republicans.