> If I enable journaling on the
> archive table would that make it safer?
>
Yes.

> Would there be a performance [penalty]
>
I don't believe so. If I remember correctly, the OS will cache the
inserts until a COMMIT is issued.

> and disk space penalty?
>
Yes. Journalling does require some disk space.

> What I would really like would be for the delete to run for a while,
> and then be able to interrupt the delete, with the corresponding
> inserts completing. Then I could restart the delete another time.
>
You could do this by making the delete a programmed housekeeping /
archive process, rather than relying on a trigger.
Are you likely to be doing bulk (multi-million row) deletes? That
suggests that your delete / housekeeping / archive process is perhaps
not very well designed. (Of course, it might not be avoidable in your
case, but to me this is a bad sign.)