The small town of Tandragee lies in the heart of Co Armagh's rural community. It straddles the main road linking the towns of Portadown and Newry as it weaves its way through rolling drumlins.
A few miles to the south is south Armagh and the infamous "Bandit Country". Less than five miles in the opposite direction is the "Orange Citadel", Portadown.
Tandragee is the same as any rural town in Ireland, North or South, distinguished from the rest only by its fairytale castle which perches precariously on the side of the hill and around which the town is built.
The castle, which once belonged to the Duke of Manchester, houses a company manufacturing potato crisps.
Tandragee is a predominantly Protestant community, and numerous flags and emblems adorn the main street and local housing estates. Loyalist murals are also in evidence, although somewhat more discreetly positioned off the main thoroughfare.
Throughout the Troubles the town of Tandragee has, in comparison to its neighbours, Lurgan and Portadown, been relatively trouble-free. Here just a short taxi ride from their homes the young Protestant community can socialise in relative safety.
It was that factor which would have encouraged David McIlwane and Andrew Robb to come to the town last Friday evening. A decision which ended in the gruesome discovery of their mutilated bodies on Druminure Road close to the local beauty spot of Clare Glen.
As news of the killings filtered through the loyalist communities of the two victims' home town of Portadown, there was an overwhelming sense of disbelief, even in a community conditioned over the years by acts of barbarity.
Portadown's Killycomaine estate, where Andrew Robb (18) lived, is intensely Protestant.
Yet Protestant loyalties are divided, as they are throughout Portadown between UVF and LVF. Many believe these divisions were instrumental in the deaths of Andrew Robb and David McIlwane.
Yesterday in Killycomaine the trappings of loyalism were in mourning for the dead youths. The tattered, faded red-white-and-blue bunting hung forlornly from the estate's electric poles, as if ashamed to be linked to the latest atrocity. Union flags and Drumcree banners hung limply on flagpoles.
Close by is a mural of the murdered loyalist icon, LVF leader Billy Wright.
It stands unblemished despite the recent obliteration of all things LVF by the Portadown Brigade of the UVF.
Wright's image stares down like an apocalyptic horseman standing guard over the territory he once commanded and where he is still revered and idolised.
His policy of no inter-loyalist friction has long since been abandoned by those who put on his mantle, yet lacked his discipline and character. The mural's steely glare pronounces Wright's judgment on the current state of loyalism in his home town.
Elsewhere, the residents of Killycomaine went about their Sunday-morning business, some to church to pray for the victims' families, others to the newsagents, anxious to read the lurid, sensational tabloid headlines proclaiming "butchery" and "slaughter".
All, however, were reluctant to speak, fearful of identification and reprisal as the fear of an inter-loyalist feud loomed large on Portadown's horizon.