Plates were cleared from the linen tablecloths, rounds of coffee and drinks were ordered. It was time for the evening show at the Westchester Broadway Theater. It was time to sing about hunger strikes, oppressive British rule and the Irish Republican Army.

In the stage's spotlight appeared four Irish balladeers known as the Wolfe Tones, whose repertory is decidedly not of the "Danny Boy" genre. Within minutes, young men in rugby shirts and older women in knit sweaters were singing in unison about joining the I.R.A., "where the helmets glisten in the sun, where the bayonets flash, and the rifles crash to the echo of a Thompson gun."

But during the show's intermission, the very people who had been singing of violent rebellion talked with words of peace. John Joyce, an insurance adjuster from New City, N.Y., who believes that England "should get the hell out" of Northern Ireland, made a point of saying, "I'm not in favor of the violence at all." And Loretta O'Reilly, a nurse from the Bronx whose Irish parents taught her about what they considered England's tyrannical rule of their homeland, said she felt ashamed when the I.R.A. set off a bomb in London last month, ending a 17-month cease-fire.

This year, many of the 2.6 million Irish-Americans in the New York metropolitan area find themselves making distinctions about how they celebrate and commemorate their Irish heritage, one marked by famine and war. Whether at the Wolfe Tones concert on Monday or at the Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams's rally for peace in the Bronx last night, they are careful to explain that their intense animosity for the British Government, expressed in song and speech, should not be interpreted as applause for violence.

The Irish-American community, many of its leaders say, has become increasingly uncomfortable with the I.R.A.'s violence, although those same leaders are quick to say that without the I.R.A., there would be no Irish republic and that Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland would still suffer overt discrimination. They also say the renewed bombing was...