THE half yearly rotation of the Irish Battalion in UNIFIL has become such a regular feature of military life in the Republic that it attracts almost no media attention outside the Defence Forces and the families of the soldiers concerned.
The troops, in three groups of 200, take the "dry" - alcohol free - flight to Beirut, and the Aer Lingus 747 which delivers them takes home 200 men and women who have served in south Lebanon for the previous six months.
The entire battalion, of just over 600, rotates in three such contingents, known as "chalks", a term whose derivation is a mystery to the present generation of soldiers.
The staggering of the rotation in this way prevents the depletion of ranks in south Lebanon which, in the past, caused difficulties for the skeleton force left on the ground.
Experience and UNIFIL's determination to hold its ground in south Lebanon have led to procedures such as the staggered rotations.
UNIFIL troops, from Ireland, Fiji, France, Ghana, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Senegal, Italy and Sweden, have fought and died in the rocky hills and valleys of south Lebanon.
Lebanon is the UN's oldest area of operations, and Irish troops have served there since 1958, two years after the State joined the UN.
UNIFIL itself was set up in 1978 following the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon in March that year, in reprisal for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's killing of 37 Israeli civilians.
The UN force was deployed in a zone across the south of the country with a mandate to "oversee" an Israeli withdrawal and the return of the area to Lebanese authority.
The Irish Battalion's mandate was to hold and protect an area of 140 sq km, around the town of Tibnin, outside which the Irish headquarters is based.
In the early days of the UNIFIL mission, the Irish fought the Israeli backed Christian militia for control of the strategically important hills around At Tiri. Attacks on the Irish Battalion increased in 1980 after the Republic recognised the PLO as the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.
The first Irish soldier to die in Lebanon, Private John Griffin, was killed during attacks by the Israeli backed South Lebanon Army (SLA) on the battalion in April 1980.
Throughout the 1980s the battalion came under regular attack by the SLA and later by the Islamic fighters of Amal and Hizbullah, as they stood their ground in south Lebanon. Fourteen soldiers have died in action, the last in 1989 when, in one day in March, three soldiers were killed by a landmine near Brashit.
Throughout the 1990s the area has continued to see action, mostly Islamic resistance attacks and the inevitable Israeli or SLA artillery or aerial bombardment of villages where the resistance fighters come from.
In his history of the Irish Army, Lieut Col John Duggan recounts one officer's recollection of writing home to his wife, with the sound of gunfire in the background, saying that all was quiet. Many of the Irish Battalion spent prolonged periods over the Christmas holidays in bomb shelters to protect them from shelling. Their experience was barely reported at home, as the troops themselves would prefer.
Only when the fighting and Israeli retaliation reach appalling levels - as in the past week and during the bombardment in August 1993 - does public interest focus on the suffering in Lebanon and the work of UNIFIL and the Irish Battalion.
The lack of regular attention belies the importance of the work to the innocent people of south Lebanon.
When the latest bombardment subsides and the 400,000 refugees gingerly make their way back to their homes, the UNIFIL troops will be there, searching for and clearing unexploded shells which, in the past, have killed children and farmers.
Throughout the bombardment, the troops fetched food and delivered it to the very poor or infirm who were unable to leave their area.
Hundreds of these people - such as those killed in Qana last Thursday - were sheltered in Irish UN posts over the past fortnight.
UNIFIL veterans, fiercely protective of the memory and reputation of the force, admit that a collection of battalions from mainly small nations around the world will never force Israel to leave southern Lebanon or stop Islamic extremists attacking the state of Israel.
But, one pointed out, not even the US has been successful on that score, so far.