Irish peacekeepers live on high alert, ready for any sudden escalation
Irish UN peacekeepers at the site where a UN peacekeeping force Unifil convoy came under fire, killing Private Seán Rooney and injuring three soldiers. Picture: Mahmoud Zayat/AFP via Getty Images
One thing you notice once you leave the relative safety of Beirut in a white UN jeep or mini-bus heading south, is the way the carefree banter largely stops among soldiers in your convoy.
Instead the casual bonhomie gives way to prolonged silences, as the soldiers zone out of everybody else’s conversation, their eyes constantly scanning the cedar-lined roads ahead and on either side of us as we drive.
The route to Camp Shamrock, the main Irish base also known as Camp 2-45, takes just over two hours and goes through various coastal towns and villages up until it takes a sudden turn some distance west of the world heritage town of Tyre and heads inland.
The residences you pass on the way are anything from an array of small to medium-sized villas surrounded by palm trees, concrete or stone walls and metal gates to more humble, almost ramshackle homes.
It is not too dissimilar to a journey you might take through rural parts of the Mediterranean, complete with dusty roadside cafes and stalls.
Back in May, on the trip I and a small group of journalists were on, it was to cover Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s laying of a wreath at a monument to peacekeepers who have lost their lives serving with Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) in Lebanon.
The monument is in the old inland hill town of Tibnine, and it was from there he visited Camp 2-52 to meet members of the 120th Infantry Battalion (120 Inf Bn) who had only weeks previously deployed to South Lebanon as part of Unifil.
But part of the Taoiseach’s official visit was also to Camp 6-52 — a small border post facing Israel and the infamous so-called Blue Line border with Lebanon.
Much of the camp is behind thick, 20ft-high slabs of reinforced concrete.
It takes about 30 minutes to get there and the journey is through rural villages and townlands considered to be very high risk.
Our journey there was in a convoy of MOWAG armoured personnel carriers.
The armed soldier in front of me stayed completely quiet from the moment the back armoured door of the vehicle slammed shut to when it finally opened again.
Heavily covered in body armour, his role was primarily to stand up through a thick metal hatch and keep watch over the vehicle and the surrounding terrain as it was driven along the dusty roads.
One half of his body was protruding up through the armoured sheeting protecting us and exposed to the elements, including the searing heat, outside.
On the way back to Beirut in what was then a convoy of UN jeeps, we stopped to get some take-away coffee.
But when I was returning to the jeeps, I noticed most of the soldiers had got out and were spread out around the jeeps, staring ahead, and around them.
Each one had their Steyr Armee Universal Gewehr (AUG) rifles by their side, with their fingers appearing to be on or near the triggers.
I asked about this later and I was told how quickly and suddenly a seemingly minor incident can very suddenly escalate into an all-out fire fight.
“Firing can come from anywhere, it might not even be directed at us, but we could just be caught in the middle of it,” they said.
“We need to be able to show we are ready to return fire and are on alert.”
When I later told one young soldier who had just joined the camp that I was genuinely impressed that someone as young as she and her colleagues would be prepared to risk their life to serve with Unifil, she just shrugged.
“I have always wanted to help people, and I’ve always wanted to serve my country and this is one of the best ways to do it,” she said.
“We are well trained to deal with situations and we rely on that to keep us safe. There are risks, sure, but you learn to deal with them.”
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