Camp Shamrock fights hard to come to terms with Seán Rooney's death
Tánaiste Micheál Martin during his visit to Camp Shamrock to pass on his condolences to troops after the death of Seán Rooney. Picture: Neil Michael
Speak to any of the troops in Camp Shamrock and no matter how they were affected by Seán Rooney’s death, most of them put a brave face on it.
All around the sprawling camp where the 24-year-old, who was shot on the night of December 14, used to run circuits, are signs of everyday camp life.
Troops drive in and out from and for patrols, joggers jog past, and recreational areas are filled with the usual jovial banter.
Before Tánaiste Micheál Martin addressed the troops at the southern Lebanon camp, a loud cheer would go up every time anybody walked into the canteen with a hat or beret on because it meant they had to pay $1 into the canteen kitty.
In fact, when I was there last May, again with the press pack to cover Mr Martin’s visit at that point, the mood then was the same now, or so it would seem.
However, there are small signs that, actually, it is very far from business as usual.
A week or so after Pte Rooney was shot, his colleagues of the 121st Battalion serving with Unifil at the camp hosted a Christmas party for the children of the Tibnine Orphanage, with which the Irish contingent has a long-standing association going back decades.
Orphanage director Ali Saad took a series of photographs of the event.
Most showed the smiles and laughter of troops as they played with the children.
Some showed a different story — a soldier here or there on the periphery, with tears in their eyes, standing on their own almost out of view.
Fast forward to Mr Martin’s flying visit on Thursday.
Pal Alex Tate was one of those who was prepared to talk to the media who attended Mr Martin’s visit.
He looked ashen-faced as he spoke about his friend, who he said would never be forgotten.
Darren Fleming, who is serving with his 25-year-old brother Eavan, is on his seventh peacekeeping tour, with this being his third with Unifil.
“It is changing every year,” the 36-year-old said. "I’m bringing more experience to the younger soldier. I am enjoying it.
“It’s just been tough this last while, losing one of our good friends, you know?”
On the way to the camp at 6.30am on Thursday in a convoy of Unifil vehicles, it was impossible not to think about Pte Rooney, especially as we passed certain landmarks on his ill-fated last journey.
The first is Raee Hospital, where he had been taken on the night of December 14 after he was struck in a hail of bullets fired into the vehicle he and three colleagues were in before it crashed and overturned.
On the way back from the hospital is a service station at a junction that leads onto the main highway into Beirut.
Pte Rooney and his colleagues were about just five minutes from this spot when they encountered a large group of residents from the village of Al-Aqbieh and surrounding areas at a junction that leads into the village from the nearby village of Sarafand.
Video — shot from an apartment balcony — of the incident will forever show the Unifil vehicle swerving past a group of people near that junction.
After the white Unifil-marked armoured jeep appears to collide with a parked car, it then drives up the main street out of the village on the Baissariye road towards Route 51.
As it leaves, a volley of shots can be heard being fired at and into the vehicle from behind as it careers out of sight of the video.
That infamous junction is about 700m from Route 51, the main highway Pte Rooney should have been on that night.
On Thursday evening, at the end of Mr Martin’s visit, our convoy tried to cross that same section of the highway but we were prevented.
The highway was strewn with burning tyres and scores of protesters, protesting at the recent currency crash and worsening economic situation.
As the flames lit up the night, sending cars streaming down side roads, it was a reminder of how volatile things can be in Lebanon.
