MICHAEL McGoldrick believes a future of ''peaceful co-existence'' can now be achieved, less than two years after his son was shot dead by terrorists.

In his home in Craigavon, near the often turbulent Portadown, he made his confident prediction because he ''trusts both the British and Irish Governments''. He had returned to Ulster in 1990 from Glasgow.

Without a hint of bitterness towards the killers who took the life of his only child during the Drumcree marching season standoff of 1996, Mr McGoldrick, a 56-year-old Roman Catholic who served with the Royal Engineers claimed the province can now be changed for the better forever.

''I thought yesterday was the great dawn of a new era in this country but only if politicians grasp it,'' he said.

His 31-year-old son graduated with an English and politics degree just three days before he was shot dead on July 8, believed to be one of the first victims of the LVF. He had hopes of becoming a teacher but was working as a part-time taxi driver when he was murdered.

His wife Sadie was pregnant with their second child, Andrew, now 19 months old.

''They (the terrorists) ordered a taxi from Michael's company, knowing it was a Catholic firm and so whoever took the call was going to be shot. Unfortunately, it was Michael,'' said Mr McGoldrick.

He found God just days after his son's death. ''I don't care whether the people who killed my son are caught, as long as they don't do it again. When I heard that Michael was dead I fell to the floor and banged my hands on the ground and told my wife we would never laugh or smile again.''

He said: ''If David Trimble will not speak to Gerry Adams, I will find that sad, because if I can love those who murdered my only child why can't they learn to sit and talk to each other?''

''He lived and died for Ulster'' is in the inscription on her son's grave, but Mrs Kathleen Darcy, crouching beside it, fears that her beloved Michael may have died for nothing.

The graves all around her in Castlederg Cemetery tell their own story - of why some Protestants voted No to the Northern Ireland peace agreement, and why many feel there is little cause for celebration today.

Thirteen soldiers and police officers are buried on this windswept hillside on the County Tyrone border, most of them shot by the IRA or blown up by terrorist landmines.

A Lance Corporal in the Ulster Defence Regiment, Michael Darcy, was murdered on June 4, 1988. He was 28 and had lived with his widowed mother all his life until the night an IRA terrorist shot him six times in the back as he returned home.

Mrs Darcy, 76, a Protestant, has lived alone ever since.

She stands beside her son's grave, a small, grey haired figure and points out all the other victims, reciting them name by name. ''Not one person caught for any of them,'' she says.

''Michael said to me once - we were at the funeral of one of his friends who was shot - he said 'Mammy if anything ever happens to me, don't cry'. And even all through the funeral I never shed a tear.''

Later, in the kitchen of her tiny retirement bungalow, Mrs Darcy explains how she fulfilled another debt to her son this week by voting No. ''I did it for Michael,'' she says.

''I don't understand how these women can say, oh they killed my son, they killed my daughter, but I forgive them. I may as well tell you, I hate their guts. I wouldn't trust any of them in Sinn Fein if they swore on a stack of Bibles.''

It is the 10th anniversary of Michael's death next week and he is even more on her mind than ever. ''The hardest part is now. I think about him all the time.

''I don't really think it was worth it.''