AN INTERVIEW with the President, Mrs Robinson, and a profile of the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, are featured in the current issues of Newsweek and Vanity Fair magazines.
The Robinson interview is part of a Newsweek article praising Ireland's "booming" economy.
Headed "Emerald Tiger", the article says there is "no need to search the Far East. The best answers to Europe's economic problems are much closer to home".
Mrs Robinson referred to her impending decision about whether to run for a second term as President, saying she was "just coming up to that point".
Asked if she was hopeful that "a real peace can come to Northern Ireland", she said she had seen "very significant changes" in her first term. "There has been a difference which was particularly notable during the full ceasefires, if I could put it that way: a sense of people willing to reach out."
Asked if there was a "dark side" to the economic boom, she spoke of "real problems". There was the increasing drug problem and there's also the problem that prosperity is widening a divide between those who have jobs and those who don't"
The Adams profile by Ms Maureen Orth runs over 13 pages of the upmarket Vanity Fair. Although the magazine calls Mr Adams an "IRA Blood Brother" on the cover, it is largely favourable to him, describing him as a "consummate juggler" who "tries to turn his people from terror to peace
In an editor's letter to the readers, Mr Graydon Carter writes: "The English - who have suffered from years of murderous Irish Republican Army bombings - remain rightly sceptical of Adams's claims that his party, Northern Ireland's Sinn Fein, is genuinely committed to making peace.
"Sinn Fein is closely linked to the IRA and, Adams's visits with President Clinton notwithstanding, the US government officially considers him a terrorist," Mr Carter writes.
Ms Orth pressed Mr Adams about his links with the IRA. She cited the claim by author Jack Holland, who writes on Northern Ireland for the Irish Echo, that "it was only in October 1995 that Adams left the Army Council".
Mr Adams replied: "At all times I have made it clear that I have not been involved with the IRA."
She asked: "Ever?"
He replied: "Ever. I've also made it clear that I won't distance myself from the IRA, both because I think it would be wrong and, second, it would mean my influence in the situation would be diminished."
Mr Adams seemed to get irritated when Ms Orth puts it to him that people don't feel his language regretting the blowing up of innocent civilians by the IRA is strong enough. He said he has never attempted to "condone, justify or explain any action in which civilians have been either injured or killed".
"Second, even in terms of this interview, I no longer see it as my role to answer questions like this. I wouldn't answer questions like this with local journalists."
When questioned about a claim by a British newspaper about an article he allegedly wrote when imprisoned in Long Kesh, Mr Adams said: "All I can tell you is that if I had written that, it would be worth at least 10 years in jail. So I wouldn't like you to write anything that's going to put me in jail."