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Ironically, it is in battle areas such as the heavily Catholic Falls Road district of West Belfast that optimists see Northern Ireland's best chance for ending the killing cycles. Despite the violence and unrelenting tension with Ulster's Protestant majority, daily life for Northern Ireland's Catholics has improved in some respects. Thanks to a $2 billion investment in public housing, for example, the proportion of Belfast dwellings judged unfit for human habitation has shrunk from 25% in 1974 to 10% today. The main beneficiaries have been Catholic residents. Building on that, British and Irish moderates hope, will eventually lead the Catholic community to turn against the gunmen. "The only people who can beat the I.R.A.," said Father Denis Faul, "are the little women of the Falls Road."