LIKE most children at this time of year, Martin Blackburn has a mask. But his is an elasticated surgical one with two holes for his ears and a hole for his eyes and nose. It makes him look like an alien, his mother says, and he refuses to wear it.
For the rest of his life Martin will carry the scars of last Hallowe'en night when a petrol bomb melted the skin on his face during a riot in the Gallanstown suburb of Dublin. Last Sunday he celebrated his fifth birthday.
Surgeons in Our Lady's Children's Hospital in Crumlin had to graft skin on to his chin so that he would have a lower lip. Next month they will put another graft on his neck. His jaw line is lumpy and scarred like moulded mozzarella cheese.
The only thing Caroline says she wants is a house - anywhere but Gallanstown. "I just hate this place. It's like living in a prison." She has been asking the corporation for a new house, but she says she owes £500 in back rent. "It would just give him a new life if we could get out." She says they were "promised the sun, moon and stars last year, but we're still here".
A spokesman for Dublin Corporation said yesterday that she did not have enough "points" for a transfer but she could put her case to a housing officer again.
On Hallowe'en night last year the desolate corporation housing estate exploded. Twenty five people were arrested and 17 charged. No one was ever charged with wounding Martin Blackburn.
Gardai in an Isuzu all terrain vehicle were sprayed with petrol when a petrol bomb smashed through the windscreen, It failed to ignite.
Gardai claimed the riots were organised by criminals who wanted to turn the area into a no go zone. Some residents claimed the gardai used heavy handed tactics to deal with a small group of troublemakers.
In the past two weeks gardai have recovered more than 20 petrol bombs and a crossbow with two bolts, according to Supt Len Ahern. Asked whether there would be trouble next Thursday one local man said: "There's always trouble here."
On Thursday afternoon a group of women stood talking about their hatred for the gardai. An unmarked car drove by, and the group and gardai eyed each other. Then it drove back, with the windows rolled down. A 17 year old said something to the garda in the passenger seat and he was taken by the shoulder and put into the car.
One man, who says there are few angels among the angry youth in Gallanstown, questions the Garda tactics. "That's the wrong way to deal with that," he says, referring to the youth who was picked up.
"He's only young now and he hates them. You can imagine him in a few years' time."
Like a lot of his neighbours, this man doesn't plan on being at home next Thursday night. "You'll see it from next week - the police presence. If they kept it low then they'd have no trouble at all."
Supt Ahern denies local claims of Garda heavy handedness. Since he was appointed at the beginning of the year he has put roving checkpoints into the area, mostly to deal with the drug problem.
"Drug searches are an everyday occurrence," he says. "There has been a good response from the local, decent, law abiding people that live there."
He gets phone calls of thanks from local people who say they feel safer now. The bottom line is that I don't want to see anyone killed," he says.
BUT there is seething suspicion of gardai among this group in Gallanstown Drive, the scene of the worst of last year's riots. For them the gardai are the enemy. It is like talking to Northern nationalists about the RUC.
"They treat us with contempt because of where we live. If there was a bit of courtesy that would be a start," one middle aged woman says. "But we're just the lowlifes to them." The locals call one garda Robocop. "We call them scumbags because they call us scumbags."
Two of the houses opposite the Blackburns are burned out wrecks, littered with junkies' debris: tinfoil, spoons and bottles and cans. There is no shortage of ammunition for would be rioters. Bricks and stones litter the waste ground surrounding the estates.
Supt Ahern says gardai have recovered sawn off shotguns and handguns in the area. "At the moment our information is that there might be some element orchestrating trouble." But he argues that community relations with the gardai have improved since last year.
He points to the Cherry Orchard Development Youth (CODY) project which is funded by the Department of Justice. Ms Celine Dunne, head of the project, is planning a different kind of Hallowe'en for Gallanstown this year.
At the Orchard Community Centre near Gallanstown they have been making Hallowe'en costumes for the children's parade. "We want them to see Hallowe'en as a time for fun and celebrating."
She is hoping for a kind of Mardi Gras atmosphere so the parade won't turn into a "march". They have printed flyers in the shape of black masks, advertising that the centre will be open from 10 a.m. for face painting and "ideas for dressing up".
There has been a strong Garda involvement in the parade, with the community gardai visiting the centre regularly. Locals are "happy to see something good happening", she says. And she is expecting at least 80 children to take part in the parade. "It's important that it doesn't just become a babysitting service, and the parents take part as well."
There has been a lot of goodwill from businesses in the area and beyond, she says. This year the under 13 football team travelled to the United States to take part in an international tournament. "Hallowe'en 95 is over and we have to work on making this year different. We need to concentrate our energy on the positive things." Last August they held a "family fun day".
"We could just take on a bunker mentality, and say that nothing can be done. But people out here are not prepared to accept the idea of a no go area."
She is proud of the murals on the wall of the centre. They show candy coloured terraces and horses wandering on green fields. "It's interesting to see the kids' view of Gallanstown. They haven't put any stolen cars into the pictures."
MARTIN Blackburn's bedroom is full of toys sent to him from strangers who read about him in the papers and saw his parents on television. There were letters, too. One made Caroline cry. It came from a woman in Galway with a furry lion. The lion was for strength, the letter said.
Caroline talks about her son waking up in the morning saying he wants to kill someone. For the first month in hospital he was sedated. After that he walked around with his head down and his shoulders hunched, just in case another petrol bomb dropped out of the sky.
"He's a totally different child since it happened to him," she says. He won't play in the front garden. A week ago someone threw a hanger through the letterbox and he screamed for her to put out the fire before he got burned again.
"He's really aggressive. He just wants to fight all the time," she says. "I have to go to bed with him every night and read a whole story into his ear before he'll go to sleep. He's in the horrors. What's frightening me is what's in his head."
