HAVANA -- (AP) -- After a five-hour meeting on topics that ranged from baseball to Third World debt, Sinn Fein party leader Gerry Adams said he had decided that Fidel Castro may have a bit of Irish in him.

 Castro told Adams during the meeting that continued into the early hours of Wednesday that his father hailed from the Spanish region of Galicia, which has Celtic roots.

 ``So it may be that we should refer to him as President Fidel McCastro!'' Adams said at a news conference before wrapping up his three-day visit.

 Whether or not the men share cultural roots, they did seem to agree on many social-economic issues, such as socialized medicine and the effects of economic
 globalization on poor countries.

 The men also talked in depth about the current situation in Northern Ireland.

 ``The Sinn Fein delegation left the discussions very impressed by the president's openness and willingness to discuss every and any issue including human rights, civil
 and religious liberties, democratic rights and entitlements internationally,'' Adams told reporters Wednesday morning.

 During the talks, Sinn Fein representatives were surprised by Castro's familiarity with the Northern Ireland peace process, said Adams.

 Also on Wednesday, Adams toured a pediatric hospital in Havana and visited with Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque.

 Adams' visit refocused attention on the cases of three suspected activists of the Irish Republican Army being held without charges in Colombia, where they were arrested in August on suspicion of training Marxist rebels. Among them is Niall Connolly, Sinn Fein's Havana-based representative for Latin America.

 Adams initially denied that Connolly was a Sinn Fein official, then said Connolly had been appointed to the post without his knowledge.

 Responding to questions about whether he would replace the Sinn Fein's Havana representative, Adams said: ``I think the first imperative is to get Niall Connolly and his friends released and we'll discuss that in due course.''

                                    © 2001