The names of republican heroes like Dan Breen and Sean Treacy may be dim or non-existent in the minds of modern Ireland's youth. After all, it is touching 90 years since they fired the first shots in the War of Independence, killing two RIC constables in a raid for explosives at Soloheadbeg quarry in Tipperary.
But they are still celebrated in street names and annual commemorations in South Tipperary, an area often viewed by itself and others as a cradle of 20th-century Irish republicanism.
"People are close to their history here; they like to remember and commemorate it," remarks Tom Corr, editor of the Clonmel-based Nationalist. Breen and Treacy were certainly practitioners of physical force but circumstances, nationally and internationally, were different then.
The Nationalist will be strongly urging a Yes vote in the Belfast Agreement referendum. "There might be certain reservations about changing Articles 2 and 3 if there wasn't a quid pro quo," says Mr Corr. "But if all the parties to the agreement have the courage to see it through and implement it fully, it could lead to the birth of a new Ireland and the possibility of a permanent settlement."
His paper celebrated its centenary in 1990. It was born out of the need to give voice locally to Irish nationalism and its first editor, James J. Long, was sentenced to three months in Kilkenny Jail under a Coercion Act for publishing a politically sensitive report on land agitation.
In 1922 the paper was in trouble again, this time with extreme republicans, because it strongly backed the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The local IRA brigade ordered it to publish a manifesto against the treaty and the Free State, and when this was refused, a group of men came into its offices and wrecked printing equipment.
The Nationalist was off the streets for several weeks, but came back then with a trenchant editorial defending the freedom of the press.
The gun may have been put into use early on in South Tipperary, but it has been put away for a long time, and Clonmel, for example, is now "very much a forward-looking place," says Mr Corr. "It certainly remembers its heroes, but I think the majority of people would see the merit in the agreement."
The role that Tipperary-born Dr Martin Mansergh, adviser to the Taoiseach, played in forging the agreement has been highlighted, as might be expected. He spoke strongly in support of the accord at the recent annual commemoration locally for republican leader Liam Lynch.
The Nationalist has not yet received any great volume of correspondence about either the Belfast Agreement or the Amsterdam Treaty referendum and the issues involved.
"Neither referendum campaign has ignited here yet," says its editor, who came to the post nearly 10 years ago from the Drogheda In- dependent. "I think a kind of euphoria swept the county, and the country, after the deal was done at Stormont, but I don't know if people have yet got down to consider Articles 2 and 3 in any great depth."
But he feels the potential economic and development benefits of the accord will weigh significantly with South Tipperary's contemporary, educated young workforce, who are keen to see its growing infrastructure of modern industry expanded and tourism boosted.
The Nationalist, with a circulation of almost 16,000, penetrates to parts of neighbouring counties such as west Waterford, north Cork, and areas of Kilkenny and Limerick. It also reaches the substantial number of Tipperary exiles in England and the US, and will be informing them on the referendum issues with interviews and articles by politicians of the main parties.