South Lebanon can be a surreal place, even before the bullets start flying. The first thing that strikes the first-time visitor is how small the place is. The area patrolled by Irish troops measures just six miles by six miles. So close are the Irish observation posts to the compounds of the South Lebanese Army that you could puck a sliothar from one to the other without difficulty.
Daytime under the hot Mediterranean sun gives a false impression of normality. Villagers in the area, only about 8,000 of them, go about their daily business as anywhere else. Local versions of "Roches Stores" and "Dunnes Stores" - no more than glorified sheds - have grown up around the Irish bases. Bus-stops, street signs and other joke-reminders of home abound.
It's a dusty place of lofty mountain ridges and subsistence agriculture. Most of the population, 95 per cent of which is Shia Muslim, live in grinding poverty, relieved only by remittances from family members in Beirut or overseas. But there's currently a construction boom, and huge holiday homes with manicured gardens have sprouted up, built by expatriate Lebanese anxious to show off their success at home.
The Irish get on well with the locals, and everyone tells them "my friend, you are my brother". But come nightfall, the same people are lobbing shells at their enemies across the valley and not worrying particularly about the Irish positions in their path.
Once the early-morning barrages cease, the UNIFIL troops begin the laborious job of collecting the evidence. Bullet-rounds are counted, shell fragments collected. "We are the eyes of the world in these parts. If we weren't doing it, no-one would know what was going on," remarks Comdt Philip Brennan, military information officer with the Irish battalion.
The rounded form of a bullet might have a certain aesthetic merit, but shrapnel is pure evil. Jagged pieces of metal fly off from the exploding shell at red-hot temperatures and cut through anything that gets in their way. The injuries they cause are horrific, surgery to remove the fragments tricky and tedious.
The chaplain with the last Irish battalion, Father Dick Marnell, was so horrified by the ordnance that was landing daily around the Irish post at Haddathah that he had Army engineers fashion a makeshift cross from pieces of shrapnel welded together.
His successor, Father Robert McCabe, brought the cross to Lourdes, where it was used at a mass held to remember UN soldiers who died overseas. On returning to his hotelroom, Father McCabe learned that another Irishman, Pte Billy Kedian, had been killed that day three weeks ago.
Forty Irish deaths in South Lebanon over 21 years could be regarded, relatively speaking, as quite a small figure. After all, more than 1,000 troops come out on either of the two tours of duty each year, and more than half the deaths were the result of traffic accidents, drownings and other non-conflict situations.
Yet there is undoubtedly a new mood of re-evaluation abroad in the Defence Forces at present. The top brass are eyeing up new opportunities with the UN force in Kosovo and through involvement in the NATO-sponsored Partnership for Peace.
Meanwhile, the commanders on the ground in South Lebanon are concerned at a "discernible change" in the rule of engagement between the South Lebanese Army and the Hizbollah fighters. As the conflict enters an "end-game" situation, both sides are playing dirty. Hizbollah has been disguising its vehicles as UN trucks, then moving up to the Irish positions for shelter before letting off their mortar-rounds.
The SLA responds with reckless and indiscriminate firing in every direction. It's only a matter of time before a catastrophe happens.
For many of the ordinary soldiers serving six-month stints, the novelty of South Lebanon is wearing off. Company Sgt Paul Fegan, for example, is now on his sixth tour of duty. He remembers the fear and loneliness of coming here as a raw 18-year-old in 1981 and the boredom of long stints in isolated observation posts without any distraction.
A stint in Lebanon is good for your bank balance, he knows, but with a wife and two young daughters there has to be a limit. Fegan is still committed to overseas service, but he'd rather be in Kosovo.
It's even harder to convince mechanics, electricians and other specialist staff to come out. Many have opted for early retirement or the temptations of the Celtic Tiger. A new continuous recruitment programme means that some soldiers' first experience of the Army life is gained in south Lebanon.
War is an industry in these parts, fuelled by the military chiefs in Tel Aviv and Damascus. Above Irishbatt headquarters in Tibnin, there's a Crusader castle to remind you how long they've been fighting for these parched valleys. Compared to this, Irishbatt's 21-year presence is a drop in the ocean.
Yet the Irish continue to make a difference. UNIFIL hasn't managed to keep the peace, but at least it's steered the conflict away from civilian populations in recent years. In 1996, for example, the SLA shelled a market in Qana, killing 96 people; it's the prospect of a repeat of this atrocity that has the Irish commanders worried.
Bruised by the reaction to the Army deafness controversy, soldiers fret constantly about their standing back home. This week's visit by the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, was an important tonic for the troops. But the massive turnout at Pte Kedian's funeral in Co Mayo earlier this month also showed the depth of public support for the work of Ireland's humanitarian peacekeepers.
"Remember," Col Pat Nash told Mr Smith, "hilltops in south Lebanon can be lonely places in times of crisis."
