The unresolved mystery of one Irish soldier's death in south Lebanon will remain after next Tuesday morning's ceremony when the last of the Irish UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) Battalion march out of the gates of their headquarters in Tibnin and begin their journey home.

Private Kevin Joyce, from the Aran Islands, was kidnapped by Christian militia here on March 27th, 1981, after his colleagues fought off the militia and stopped them from overrunning and possibly massacring the Muslim inhabitants of a small village in the hills of south Lebanon.

He was one of 17 Irish soldiers killed in action, along with 28 others who died accidentally while on peacekeeping duty in Lebanon.

Private Joyce was murdered and secretly buried by the militia, members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), the local surrogates of the Israeli defence forces.

Since then there have been repeated but fruitless efforts to find his remains and bring them home. The present Minister for Defence, Mr Michael Smith, made the recovery of Private Joyce's remains a personal mission and raised the issue on every trip he has made to the country, making appeals to President Emile Lahoud down to the muktars (mayors) of the surrounding villages.

It has been to no avail. Thousands of people disappeared in the region during the 1980s and many have never been heard of again.

The last soldier to die as a result of hostile action was Private Billy Kedian, from Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, who was killed by a mortar fired by the SLA in June 1999. In May of last year, four Irish soldiers died in a traffic accident. In all, UNIFIL lost 235 international peacekeepers.

Irish soldiers served through some of the most awful periods of Lebanon's history. From 1978, when the first battalion set up camp in the hills just north of the Israeli Border, the Irish served through years of terrible civil war, invasion and atrocity. The Israeli Army swept through the UNIFL lines in 1982 and began the bloody period of occupation up to 1984, when they withdrew south again past the UNFIL lines and set up the 10-km deep "security zone" inside Lebanon.

In the 1990s the Irish Battalion served through the two massive Israeli bombardments of south Lebanon, in 1993 and 1996, after attacks into Israel by the Lebanese guerrilla force, Hizbullah.

The UN Mandate for the complete Israeli withdrawal eventually came to be met last year when Israel's then Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, made the brave decision to unilaterally withdraw his troops.

The Lebanese Hizbullah forces, who had harried and pressed the Israelis and SLA for the last decade, then made the reciprocal humane gesture of causing no harm to the Christian communities in south Lebanon. The area is at peace and the UNIFIL garrison is now being reduced to two single battalions, from the Indian and Ghanaian armies.

The senior UNIFIL officer who oversaw the withdrawal in May last year is now deputy chief of the Irish Defence Forces, Maj Gen Jim Sreenan.

Speaking yesterday of the transition period and Israeli withdrawal, he said he was content at the operation.

He met Mr Barak on three occasions and the Lebanese President, Mr Lahoud, 10 times during the negotiations to agree the withdrawal. The only friction that remains is over arguments about a small patch of land - only a few acres in Sheeba farms in the eastern Border area.

"We declared the withdrawal when we were quite sure the Israelis had gone but then it started to get down to arguments over five metres here and three metres here of border.

"We were satisfied that the Israelis were out, but the Lebanese felt their border was infringed so that caused delays and that took some time to sort out." During one of his visits to a contended border area, Maj Gen Sreenan, who was accompanied by UN and Lebanese cartographers, was shot at by nervous Israeli soldiers.

"We were down there with a set of maps to relate the line to the ground. I was showing the Lebanese that they had won back their line and we were close to a position that was supposed to have been evacuated but obviously was re-occupied."

The soldiers, who the general feels were uncertain of what was happening, opened fire with rifles and shots struck the road about a foot in front of where he was standing. None of the party was injured. "They were young soldiers who had been left there without clear instructions."

Maj Gen Sreenan said that in the end the UN mission in Lebanon was a success. In the final weeks there were great concerns that there would be massacres. The Christians held a large number of Muslim prisoners at the infamous Khaim Prison inside the occupied zone and it was feared the prisoners would be blown up. If this had happened there could have been massacres of Christian villagers.

The prisoners were freed safely and in the days after there was something of a carnival atmosphere in the parts of the zone where Muslim communities were finally re-united after 20 years of exile.

Another young Irish officer who served after the withdrawal, Lieut Ronnie McGrath (25) from Tipperary, served for three months in one of the three forward UN observation posts set up by the Irish Battalion to observe the withdrawal.

He commanded a platoon of 34 soldiers at Post 650, right up against the border to the south of the town of Yaroun.

"We patrolled all hours of the day and were on constant watch for violations. It required constant vigilance on behalf of the Battalion.

"There were no serious incidents, no exchanges of fire between the Hizbullah and Israeli defence forces. There was in the Indi Batt (Indian Battalion area, which covers the Sheeban farms) and some of that tension extended along the border. Any time we approached any of their (Israeli) positions they would go on alert, pointing weapons at you despite the fact we were in big white UN vehicles. There were young and inexperienced soldiers there and we were concerned.

"On one night they became convinced the Hizbullah were coming up the wadi at them and they fired off flares but there was no exchange of fire." Since Lieut McGrath's return to duty in Limerick, the Irish have withdrawn from the three new border posts they built and these have been handed over to Ghanaian troops. UNIFIL has dropped from its strongest levels of around 9,000 troops to just around 1,500 although there are also unarmed UN observers patrolling the area.

It had been anticipated and stated in the UN Mandate that the area would be handed over to the control of the Lebanese army. But for various reasons - not wishing to be directly confronting the Israeli defence forces and to allow the Hizbullah to enjoy their period of victory - the Lebanese Army has held back from establishing forward bases.

The Irish headquarters, known as Camp Shamrock, was to have been ceded to the Lebanese but, instead, the Ghanaian battalion will occupy it until the time is right.