If you were to judge from their relaxed manner, you might think the 10 Irish officers stationed in Lebanon were on a Mediterranean holiday. But the immediacy of the danger they face is audible: explosions so routine they hardly notice.
No place in Lebanon is safe - it is not just Unifil headquarters. Since the war started on July 12th "we have had a bomb from an Israeli aircraft and two artillery shells exploded within our compound", the force commander, French general Alain Pellegrini, said.
On July 25th, a direct hit on a position at Khiam killed four officers from the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL). Five Irish officers comprise 10 per cent of the 50-strong observer group and they knew the dead men well. They cannot discuss the facts of the case because they do not want to prejudice UN and Israeli investigations.
But they spoke with emotion of their dead comrades. When headquarters lost communication with the OGL post at Khiam that evening, said Capt Ronan Corcoran: "We hoped the communications mast had been wiped out and they were trapped in the shelter."
A rescue force of Indian Unifil soldiers was despatched to Khiam under bombardment. "We were still hopeful until we heard the bodies had been found," Capt Corcoran recalled.
"Everything goes quiet. Everybody walks out, smokes cigarettes. Nobody talks."
Peta Hess von Kreudner, descended from Prussian nobility, was in the Canadian special forces. He went by the nickname "Wolf", Capt Corcoran recalled. "He had the temperament of a wolf, very protective of the others."
Peter Lang, the Austrian officer who was killed, replaced Irish commandant Pat Dillon so that Dillon could see off his family when they were evacuated from Tyre. Intense bombardment prevented Dillon from returning to the patrol base, otherwise he would probably have been killed with the others. On July 28th, the UN Security Council redeployed all the unarmed observers to Naqoura.
The Finnish naval officer, Jarno Makkinen, was known to all as "Big Mac" and is described by the Irish as "always happy, always personable". He was engaged to be married in September "to a beautiful fiancee".
Du Zhaoyu, the Chinese observer, was "a fabulous cook" with a fondness for Comdt Dillon's Irish stew. He talked a lot about his little boy and often questioned other observers about life "in your country".
Ireland has made a huge contribution to peacekeeping in Lebanon. Forty-five Irish soldiers have died here, the highest number of any national contingent. As deputy force commander, Gen Jim Sreenan, now Army chief of staff, drew the "blue line" which passes for a border between Lebanon and Israel.
Ireland left Unifil in November 2001 after Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon, a key element of the peacekeepers' mandate. Most of the 10 Irish officers now deployed here on an individual basis served repeatedly with Unifil.
Lt Gen John Molloy, the commander of the Irish contingent, has served five tours of duty with Unifil.
"We have a lot of history here," he says. " We came here in 1978, when Unifil was established. We invested a lot of humanitarian effort in trying to help people. We have a real affinity with Lebanese people and we are upset and down about what is happening."