Irene and her family received the death notice to move out of their north Belfast home exactly 26 days after the first attack had happened. The only words of the telephone message made through the RUC's confidential line that Irene remembers are: "loyalist paramilitaries currently on ceasefire . . . the occupants of 38 Graymount Drive have twelve hours to get out of the area."
The following morning, Irene, her husband and their three sons left the home they had lived in for 14 years in what was once a quiet and religiously mixed estate off the Antrim Road, but has in recent years has seen Catholics systematically driven out.
"I didn't understand why we were being targeted," says Irene. "But my husband said, `don't be so stupid, it's because you're Catholic. That's reason enough for them."'
That was last year. Today, Irene lives in a neat house in another mixed religion estate in Glengormley. It is only a few miles up the road from Graymount, but an entire mindset away from the naked sectarianism which simmers there and in surrounding estates and which boiled over again this week with a petrol bomb attack on the house of a Catholic community activist, Anne Nee.
That incident was the latest in a long line of tit-for-tat pipe and petrol bomb attacks, as well as beatings, riots, and almost daily incursions by loyalists and republicans into each other's territories which are divided by a 10 ft high `peace line'. The violence, which started four years ago and now flares up every summer around the time of Drumcree, has left nerves shattered, lives disrupted and communities divided over how to stop it.
The trouble centres on three housing estates in a four-square-mile area: White City, which is totally Protestant; Graymount, which used to be 30 to 40 per cent Catholic but is becoming exclusively Protestant; and Whitewell, which is about 90 per cent Catholic and is sandwiched between the other two areas.
The houses, a mixture of Housing Executive and privately owned, run between the Antrim Road and the Whitewell Road, with lovely views of Belfast's well-known landmark, Cave Hill, on one side, and Belfast Lough on the other.
The Protestant areas are decked with loyalist Ulster flags, bunting and painted kerb stones, and the Graymount estate is peppered with boarded-up houses and For Sale signs on homes which no one wants to buy. Loyalist graffiti on the peace wall includes the letters KAT, which means Kill All Taigs.
The area is one of about 15 parts of north Belfast where there is a Catholic/Protestant interface. But while loyalist paramilitary groups have been largely successful in other interface areas in keeping the peace, the Whitewell area seems to be a law unto itself.
Sinn Fein's North Belfast Assembly member, Gerry Kelly, this week pointed the finger at the UDA, which is on ceasefire, for orchestrating the attacks. John White from the Ulster Democratic Party, which has close links to the group, strongly denies it and blames "young hooligans unconnected with paramilitary groups" for the attack on Nee's home.
"It's a cancer in that society - that place has been bubbling for years and there are just too many kingdoms," says Mr Jim English, a UDP worker who has been involved in cross-community meetings.
Catholic residents insist that loyalist paramilitaries, including dissident loyalist groups such as the Orange Volunteers and the Red Hand Defenders, are orchestrating the violence and even shipping in loyalists from other areas to swell their numbers.
The Red Hand Defenders have claimed a couple of incidents in the Graymount area, according to RUC sources. The RUC believes the republican attacks are being carried out by "gurriers" who are not connected to paramilitary groups.
The SDLP's constituency representative for the area, Martin Morgan, says statistics showing the number of Catholics intimidated out of the Graymount estate speak for themselves. He has helped about a third of up to 40 families who have left the area in the past few years. Some 21 Catholic families remain there. In the last week alone, three families have started making plans to move out, says Morgan.
The peace wall has not made Iris Graham's life any better. The 28-year-old Protestant single mother with three young children lives on Gunnel Hill at the entrance to the loyalist White City area, which has become a flashpoint. Like many homes in the area, hers has windows made from reinforced glass. Her letter box is sealed to prevent petrol being poured through the front door. Iris estimates that her house has been attacked between 20 and 30 times in the past year. She applied for a transfer out of the area last September, but cancelled it shortly afterwards. "My whole life is here, I've lived here all my life and grew up with Catholic lads on the Whitewell," says Iris, who is a member of White City Community Development Association.
The mistrust between the communities is palpable - talks between Catholic and Protestant community groups broke down a few months ago amid mutual recriminations. Behind-the-scenes talks have also been inconclusive. Ms Dolores Johnson from the Protestant Graymount Community Association, which declined to participate in the failed talks, says that "if a dog was knocked down on the Whitewell Road, it would be Graymount's fault."
"Community workers cannot be a police service 24-hours a day," says Brian Dunn, White City's neighbourhood development worker. "They can only do their best and talk to reason to their communities and try to identify to them what problems will come back to them. A brick through someone's window could lead to a petrol bomb attack in revenge."
A Catholic community activist, Patrick Convery, says leadership at a political and community level is needed to resolve the ongoing strife. Mr Convery, who works with the Survivors of Trauma organisation which has assisted families who have been intimidated or evicted over the past few years, said: "We have to get back to talks because there is a risk of this deteriorating further and someone in the community could be killed. Is that what it's going to take before leadership is exercised from all sections of the community?"