BELFAST: Paying tribute to the victims of one of Europe's bloodiest sectarian conflicts, the leaders of Northern Ireland drew a formal line Tuesday under decades of hostility and strife, re-establishing a power-sharing local authority made up of once-implacable foes.

Watched by dignitaries from Britain, Ireland, the United States and elsewhere, the Reverend Ian Paisley, leader of the dominant party among Northern Ireland's Protestants, and Martin McGuinness, of the republican and mainly Catholic Sinn Fein party, were sworn in as leader and deputy leader of the Northern Ireland executive government.

"Today we will witness not hype but history," McGuinness said.

Paisley - once the most strident voice of Protestant opposition to peace efforts - said: "From the depths of my heart, I can say to you today that I believe Northern Ireland had come to a time of peace, a time when hate will no longer rule. How good it will be to be part of the wonderful healing in this province today."

For all the oratory, though, the precise moment when former sworn enemies agreed to work together passed in an almost humdrum exchange of formalities.

"I affirm the terms of the pledge of office as set out in Section 4 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998," Paisley said to become First Minister, referring to the legislation that established the power-sharing authority. McGuinness echoed the same pledge a few seconds later to become Paisley's deputy. As they shook hands among a milling crowd of dignitaries and supporters, there was no sign of them shaking hands with each other.

The events Tuesday at the Stormont Parliament - a onetime emblem of Protestant hegemony in Northern Ireland - revived the local authority and ended direct rule from London after a suspension of the Belfast authority in October 2002 in a dispute over allegations of espionage by the Irish Republican Army. Politicians hailed the moment as historic.

The events were dominated by two parties - the republicans of Sinn Fein seeking a united Ireland and the Democratic Unionist Party, which wants continued union with Britain - once seen as the most hard-line adversaries. Both Paisley and McGuinness reiterated their commitment Tuesday to their divergent visions of Ireland's future.

The agreement to share power, struck last March, followed years of hard-nosed negotiation during which the IRA, affiliated to Sinn Fein, abandoned its armed struggle and said it would embrace politics. For his part, Paisley dropped his refusal to share power with his republican foes.

Peter Hain, Britain's Northern Ireland minister, said the deal to restore local government "is going to stick" because "these are the two most polarized forces in Northern Ireland's politics, they have done the deal."

In 30 years of violence known as the Troubles, more than 3,700 people died in sectarian fighting and conflict in Northern Ireland that sometimes spilled into England in bomb attacks. Since cease-fires in the 1990s, successive British governments have struggled to cement peace, enshrined in the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

"It's a day that no one thought ever to see - Ian Paisley of the Democratic Unionist Party in government with Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein," said Sydney Elliott a professor of politics at Queen's University here. "They have a big program of work ahead. A lot of things were neglected over the years of the conflict. There is a lot of pent up energy here in society to make things work."

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain and his Irish counterpart, Bertie Ahern, attended the ceremony Tuesday, both pursuing political goals of their own. Blair is expected to announce this week that he will step down in June or early July and is seeking to build a legacy of achievement including the Northern Ireland peace.

"Look back and we see centuries marked by conflict, hardship, even hatred among the people of these islands," Blair said in a speech alongside Paisley, McGuinness and Ahern. "Look forward and we see the chance to shake off those heavy chains of history."

Ahern hailed Blair as the driving force behind the Northern Ireland peace effort and said: "We cannot undo our sad and turbulent past. And none of us can forget the many victims of the Troubles. But we can, and are, shaping our future in a new and better way."

Ahern is also seeking a third term in Irish elections May 24 where Sinn Fein, which has a toehold in the Irish Parliament, is seeking to expand its influence, challenging the prime minister's own party.

The combination of Paisley as first minister with McGuinness as his deputy offered a once-unthinkable constellation of personalities. Paisley long accused McGuinness of being an IRA "terrorist" and acquired the nickname "Dr. No" for his rejection of the Good Friday agreement and refusal to cooperate with his adversaries.

The deal between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party followed elections in March that confirmed the two parties as Northern Ireland's dominant political groups and enabled both to say they had a mandate to strike a deal.

In chance conversations on the streets of Belfast, there seemed to be more misgivings among Protestants than Catholics.

Joan McCoubrey, 70, a Catholic pensioner who lost a brother in 1971 in the early years of the conflict, said: "I don't want my grandchildren to go through what I went through." Isabelle Fagan, 81, said: "We have all suffered and I think it will work out."

But Deborah Harbinson, a 48-year-old Protestant homemaker, said: "There are still a lot of problems left to be tackled. There's still hidden violence and division and few job opportunities."

William Donnelly, 60, a security guard, said peacemaking in Northern Ireland "could be an example for the rest of the world. Countries have to come together and learn to accept their differences."

At various stages in the Northern Ireland negotiations, the United States played an important role in pushing the two sides together. President Bill Clinton made three high-profile visits to Northern Ireland and President George W. Bush came here in 2003.

In 2005, however, both President Bush and Senator Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, snubbed Adams during a visit to Washington to register their distaste at the murder of Robert McCartney, a Northern Ireland Catholic, in a Belfast pub by a group that included members of the Irish Republican Army.

In a statement after he attended the ceremony Tuesday, Kennedy, part of an American delegation, said: "Northern Ireland has shown the world that peace is possible, even in the face of tragic history. Guns can be taken out of politics. Militias can be disarmed. Police agencies can be reformed to serve entire communities. These are the lessons of Northern Ireland, and they offer our hope for other troubled areas of the world, too."