Now it was the army's turn to decommission. After 16 years, the watchtowers came down

Internal links

Donald Macintyre: Even today, the struggle for peace is not over

Leading article: Now isolate those still addicted to violence in Northern Ireland

IRA's move will give Trimble a surge of support

Adams calls on Real IRA to abandon arms

Commons gives cautious welcome to arms move

Loyalists: paramilitary groups have no instinct to give up the armed struggle

Memories mean hope is mixed with scepticism

High command of military's all-seeing eye

Republicans: dissident groups hope to recruit those who still believe in violence

After 16 years, the watchtowers came down

Trimble paves way for return to government

On a summer's day 16 years ago, the villagers of Sturgan watched as an army helicopter flew to the top of a hill and put down a drab green watchtower.

Shortly after 12.30pm yesterday, the sound of rotor blades once more descended on Sturgan's mountain observation post in South Armagh as soldiers began demolition of the tower and took away the paraphernalia of the fight against the IRA.

By early evening, men could be seen clambering over a dome containing hi-tech surveillance equipment, as the Northern Ireland secretary Dr John Reid announced to Parliament that British demilitarisation had begun.

On a hill opposite, several helicopters flew repeatedly over the larger Camlough Mountain look-out post, landing briefly before taking off again, heavily laden with cargo nets.

Just as the destruction of the World Trade Centre had, arguably, precipitated the IRA's decision to disarm, now South Armagh's own Twin Towers were coming down, this time as a symbol of the diminishing threat of terrorism.

For Conrad Sands, 37, a hill-farmer whose family has owned the land on which the towers were stationed for two generations, the din of helicopter engines ­ which he has endured daily since the observation posts were built in 1985 ­ was, for once, a dream come true.

"Good riddance to them. I've waited a long time for a day when I'd see another helicopter come along and lift that tower up just as suddenly as it was put down. I'm not political. I just want to be able to eat my dinner without feeling that Big Brother is watching my every mouthful and, believe me, from that thing up there, they can.''

The Sturgan's mountain "Sanger'', as the heavily fortified towers are known, is one of a network of 15 that criss-cross South Armagh. Perched on 10 different hillsides across some 30 miles, they survey a "war-zone" of rolling hills, small brightly painted towns and some of the most dramatic countryside in the British Isles.

But this is also the "bandit country'' of republican and British Army legend where soldiers are moved only by helicopter for fear of ambushes and the civilian population has grown used to the sight of fortress-like army and RUC barracks protected by concrete bunkers and steel cladding.

Three of the four bases ear-marked for removal by Dr Reid ­ the watchtowers at Sturgan and Camlough Mountain along with a joint army and RUC "super-Sanger'' at Newtownhamilton ­ stand in a fortified triangle within seven miles of each other.

As the fourth helicopter of the day clattered overhead with provisions for the soldiers inside, Mr Sands, who lives with his wife and young son in a new bungalow below the Sturgan look-out post, described it as an alien presence.

He said: "It is like World War Two up there ­ you have two cordons of razor wire that'll cut you to shreds. It sits there like some sort of green monster. We were told by the army that they wanted the hill all those years ago and that was that. There's no road and you get the helicopters coming over all day. Sometimes I think I'm in Vietnam.'' Looking up at the watchtower, he added: "When it's gone I'll feel more safe. I won't be scared every time I go to look at the sheep that some young soldier will think I'm IRA and try to kill me.'' With the clatter of rotor blades seemingly never far away, the parallel with Vietnam seemed oddly appropriate.

Army patrols from the watchtower frequently leave Mr Sands with strands of broken wire on his fencing ­ cut away by soldiers fearful of a long standing IRA tactic of booby-trapping farm gates. In the early 1990s, three local farmers killed in a republican feud were dumped within yards of the observation tower.

According to locals, the message from the terrorists was clear: "You can watch from your bunkers but we're the ones in control.'' As if to underline it, the lush winding roads of South Armagh were punctuated yesterday not only by Irish tricolours but also green, white and orange cut-outs of the letters IRA, painted signs demanding the disbanding of the RUC and mock threats of "snipers at work''.

Another farmer, who lives at the foot of Camlough Mountain, said: "This is all the propaganda of a war. It may be beautiful country but there's been a slow, unseen war here. But more than the IRA giving up its guns, it is the army taking down the towers that means it's over in South Armagh.''

In Newtownhamilton, a farming community of around 1,000 people nestling between Newry and Armagh, there was a similarly audible sigh of relief that their own "super-Sanger" is to be removed. The town is dominated by two look-out posts sprouting over the rooftops like, in the words of one resident, "armoured cabbages".

The towers are alongside a heavily fortified RUC station and army barracks, which was home yesterday to a detachment from the King's Own Scottish Borderers, on a six-month tour in South Armagh.

But while the base may have protected the military, the town itself has suffered in more than one way from its presence.

In June 1998, a car bomb planted by dissident republicans to destroy the police station devastated the town square and businesses.

Kieran McCann, who runs the family butchers which had to be rebuilt after the blast, welcomed the removal of the post: "No one wants to visit a place where the town square is blocked off by a control zone and steel gates. They've got to take the towers away, take the gates away and get people coming through. Tourism isn't something that many people benefit from here." Elsewhere, there was anger that the fortification had taken the heart out of the Newtownhamilton community.

There were others who recognised the validity of the bunkers, if not their beauty. One man in his 70s, who described himself as a "proud Catholic veteran of D-day", said: "You've got to remember, these lads, these soldiers, were going to be killed if they didn't have all them towers and stuff. You can't blame someone for trying to save their own neck."

Security sources said the presence of dissidents such as the Real IRA meant a downgrading to the security seen on the British mainland would not happen, perhaps for years.

There were indications, however, that both for those in the watchtowers and the people around them life had become more relaxed. Mr Sands said: "I went up there the other day and heard all the shouting and screaming. I thought someone was being murdered. I crawled up there to see what was going on. It was soldiers playing a game of cricket.''