"The recent bombing in a Detroit bar has an estimated death toll of nine. . . . The rebels in Wisconsin have reportedly claimed responsibility."

Imagine Wisconsin and Michigan at war over the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Every day you would hear reports of the religious and political war being waged between two neighboring states.

For kids in Northern Ireland, this is their daily reality. With a conflict that erupted centuries before them, this kind of violence has become so routine that most people say they don't even notice.

Children's Express recently interviewed four kids living in Northern Ireland about living in their country, the political conflicts and the violence.

These Belfast-area teens find themselves in the middle of what 13-year-old Orlaith Strong says is a "stupid" conflict.

Basically, the strife in Northern Ireland is between political parties and religious groups. The Irish Catholic faction is represented by the Irish Republican Army or Sinn Fein, its political arm. Its goal is for Northern Ireland to join the Irish Republic to the south.

Northern Irish unionists are Protestants who want to remain a part of Britain.

Britain first interfered with Ireland's affairs in A.D. 1169, when it took over Dublin and the surrounding area. Britain sent colonists to Ireland and made them take an oath to remain Protestant so that Britain could instill Protestantism in Catholic Ireland.

This caused conflicts between settlers and natives, which intensified in a major rebellion in 1641, and since then there have been sporadic revolts.

Protestants came to outnumber Catholics in northern Ireland, and discrimination against Catholics became a way of life. The identification with Britain was so intense that when the rest of Ireland was supporting independence, or Home Rule, in 1912, northern Irish unionists organized an army to defend the right to remain British.

When the province of Northern Ireland was created in 1920, the British government drew a border that guaranteed Protestants a majority in the comparatively wealthy, industrialized northeast of Ireland.

Since then, however, the Catholic population has been steadily gaining in this six- county province, called Ulster. In 1968, marches and demonstrations protesting injustices to Catholics began, creating frequent clashes between protesters and police.

These clashes came to a head in 1972, when 13 demonstrators at a civil rights march were killed by British soldiers in what has come to be known as "Bloody Sunday." Two months later, direct rule from England was imposed, and it continues today.

The presence of British troops in Northern Ireland, especially in Belfast, has led to riots and violence. British troops patrol the sidewalks, and armored cars scout and stake out the streets. Both the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland, especially in Belfast, walk down the street and find the occasional machine gun barrel pointed at them.

Since 1971, more than 3,200 of Northern Ireland's 1.6 million people have died as a result of the terrorism, and 36,000 have been wounded. More than 7,200 people have been detained since 1974 by British officials for alleged political crimes in Northern Ireland, but only 9 percent have been charged with terrorist activity.

This past October, peace talks between Sinn Fein and the British progressed so that a cease-fire remains in effect. While talks are continuing, they are currently at a standstill.

Kids in Northern Ireland have been lost in the chaos of their country, trying to comprehend the blinding conflicts and violence. The fact cannot be ignored, though, that these kids are the future of Northern Ireland, and their voices must be heard so their country can maintain whatever peace it achieves.

The voices on this page are not the voices of political leaders or terrorists. These are the voices of kids who have managed to subsist among the discord and violence around them

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Lisa Schubert, 15; Megan White, 15; and Eric Hauser, 14.

REPORTERS: Katie Beyer, 13; Sean Strother, 14.