Tucked inside the rows of uneven graves at Milltown Cemetery in Belfast, it is easy to believe that the unofficial war in Northern Ireland between Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries continues. Two boys visit a lump of plastic flowers that passes as a fresh grave, the caretaker sweeps a traveled path past still shining headstones marked "IRA Volunteer" and the police surveillance camera hovers atop a thin gray tower across the Falls Road, watching shadowy forms dart among the monuments.

With the recent visit of President Clinton, the international community turned to Belfast, hoping that with the new Northern Ireland Assembly and the recent withdrawal of British troops, neighborhoods like the Catholic enclave surrounding Milltown would get a chance to catch their breath, a chance at peace. But as authorities in the Northern capital continue backpedaling when pressed about substantive police and housing reform, points of contention among the poor on both sides of the religious divide, the old conflicts continue.

Parades this summer, while less violent than those of past seasons, prompted the same spirit of distrust among many Belfast residents, not only of government authorities making the decisions about who could march where, but of their neighbors as well. Many people are hesitant to become involved in a new state without the guarantee of certain basic reforms. Feelings of betrayal reverberate especially with people in our generation who have grown up with police checkpoints dividing the path home from school and bomb scares marring weekends.

But if Milltown teaches the walking wounded of Belfast anything, it is the finality of death. Weaving one's way through the cramped gray stones and overgrown plots, surveying the slope almost entirely covered with casualties of street violence, it is impossible not to covet the small space of empty grass at the bottom of the hill. Whether this desire for peace prompted by exhaustion is enough to build a just government remains to be seen.

--MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE

The writer spent the first two weeks of September completing thesis research in Belfast.