Portaprod and PortaTaig, as they are known locally, are two villages in eastern County Down. Although they are only seven miles apart they might as well be 700 for, despite their proximity, they almost perfectly depict the great divide between the two main traditions in Northern Ireland. The depth of their political and cultural differences underlines the massive surge of reconciliation, trust, tolerance and coexistence that will have to be generated to give practical effect to any settlement emerging from the political talks to take place at Stormont over this winter.
Both villages are on the Ards Peninsula, the long finger of land, running south from the eastern outskirts of Belfast, bounded by Strangford Lough and the Irish Sea. Unlike in Belfast, where the city's rigid sectarian geography is defined by high walls at 14 places, the peninsula is split by an invisible, but equally solid, barrier. The Protestants live north of the line, the Catholics to the south. The ancient hatreds are so deep-seated that there are many road signs with the real name of one village or the other crudely blanked out as if it did not exist.
PortaProd, actually Portavogie, which lies at the eastern-most point of the island, is an overwhelmingly Protestant village ( more than 90 per cent) with a steadily growing population, at present about 3,500. Every night the flash from the Mull of Galloway lighthouse emphasises, as it rotates at 45-second intervals, the closeness of what the community sees as its Scottish hinterland.
In an attempt to counter the ever-growing spread of the Irish language and culture, there is clamour for greater recognition of these Ulster Scots roots. Several places on the peninsula now bear bilingual street signs, denoting the Scots and English names. Older Portavogie people remember the days when boats were rowed over to Scotland for Sabbath worship.
Portavogie is still a God-fearing place. There are probably a dozen churches, missions and gospel halls in its environs and Sunday is by far the busiest day of the week when families, dressed in their finery, gather to worship at morning and evening. It is one of the North's three sea fishing bases and it is said that as they battle the winter storms, the boatmen tune into one captain who sings hymns of praise across the radio.
Its fundamental religious traditions have been so strong that Portavogie has never had a public house. However, one is now under construction, despite a strong protest campaign, and will open in a few weeks.
By contrast in PortaTaig, actually Portaferry, seven miles to the south, there are as many pubs as Portavogie has churches. With a population of some 3,000, more than 90 per cent Catholic, the easy-going village, at the mouth of Strangford Lough, with its ferry, aquarium and reputation for fine seafood is one of the jewels of Northern tourism. Gaelic culture thrives in the area through the GAA and there are in particular, several strong hurling teams. It is an SDLP supporting nationalist, rather than a republican, area, as evidenced by the lack of graffiti and murals.
Both villages are administered by the unionist-controlled Ards Council, which largely act as if there were no minorities or alternative viewpoints to recognise. Every meeting starts with a scripture reading and prayer. Twelve years after the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the offices in Newtownards continue to proclaim: "Ards still says no." There was much criticism recently when it challenged an entertainment licence for Portaferry GAA.
The councillors vigorously articulate the sense of betrayal, insecurity and political impotence now widespread in their community. They say their cultural heritage is being undermined by the curbs on parades. They claim their civil rights are being compromised by measures designed, not to create a more equal society, but to favour Catholics. Above all, they believe the British government is now openly conspiring with the Irish, and the IRA, to suck them into a dreaded united Ireland, where their Britishness and Protestantism would be mercilessly suppressed.
However unreal or imagined these views, they are held widely, and as truth, by many sincere, hard-working and frightened unionists. This is an inescapable political reality and one with which the Irish Government must urgently come to terms if the forthcoming talks are not to quickly founder. In fact, 75 years after partition, when their political forebears abandoned Northern nationalists to an uncomfortable fate under unionism, Southern political leaders this time need to show an infinitely more sensitive understanding of all their Northern fellow islanders.
It is, for instance, quite wrong to assume, as many do, that all nationalists are eagerly counting the days to a united Ireland. Many doubt the Republic's taxpayer would stump up the £4,000 a head a year subsidy necessary to maintain the standards that the British have accustomed them to.
John Bruton's antennae have, so far, been the most sensitive in grasping and reflecting the conflicting Northern aspirations and fears, as they so graphically exist in east Down. Bertie Ahern, the present Taoiseach, who has said that he sees himself only as the guarantor of nationalist interests in the North, urgently needs to catch up and be as honest.
At a time when John Hume and even Sinn Fein are acknowledging the importance of the "unionist dimension" to the future of this island, Ahern's is a profoundly short-sighted and potentially dangerous sentiment.
What he must do, without delay, and with the full authority of being Taoiseach, is demonstrate a much greater insight into the challenging enormity of the tasks ahead and articulate how this unionist dimension can be protected and given full expression. We all know we face a disunited Ireland.
It is high time that was said more openly. But a disunited Ireland need not be a divided Ireland. What we must create is a new Ireland, founded on diversity and tolerance, with its people bound together, not by political or cultural annexation, but by shared ties of history, heritage, culture and mutual social and economic benefit.
Mary Holland is on holiday.