It could be a parable of the power of fear. Of how staggeringly easy it can be to drive wedges between communities, to raise the political temperature, to create an atmosphere of suspicion and hatred.

Instead, it's a story of faith and courage . . . an everyday story of Northern Ireland, in other words. Except this time, the scene is south of the Border, just 80 miles from Dublin.

This week, three apprehensive clergymen sat in a big, bright drawing-room on the fringe of Monaghan town, still unsure that they should be speaking to a journalist at all. Their nervousness was understandable. Their lives had been threatened, twice, in recent weeks.

The first was a letter, addressed to a clergyman's home. Drafted in poor handwriting, in red biro on lined notepaper, it arrived on Monday, January 26th: "We view with great concern what is happening in Northern Ireland. Catholics are coming under attack. I am a member of the Catholic Reaction Force. If this continues, we will take action against Protestants in Monaghan. Be warned."

Though the postmark was indecipherable, it was posted in the Republic. There was no signature and no codeword. A more specific threat was telephoned two days later to an Armagh newspaper. The caller again claimed to be from the CRF and said it would target "Protestant ministers in the Monaghan area". That was it. Again, no name or codeword.

The local gardai acted promptly, visiting six Presbyterian and Church of Ireland ministers in and around Monaghan town whom they judged to be most vulnerable, and advising them on elementary precautions. They also advised them to keep the news to themselves.

At this, the three clergymen nod emphatically. The Revs Mervyn Burnside, Mark Harvey and Jack Drennan would clearly have been delighted to do just that and not as a self-preservation measure. They instantly recognised the necessity to kill with silence this attempt to make them links in the murderous Northern game of retaliation.

Even this week, when the story had already been aired in British and Irish media, they were taking their responsibility to peace seriously. This reporter had to go elsewhere for details of the threats against them.

"The initial trigger may have been from the previous week when the LVF threatened a couple of Catholic priests in the Dungannon area and some social workers around Portadown," said Mr Burnside.

"We're not sure whether the threats here were a tit-for-tat reaction to that, but that would have been the rationale behind our unwillingness to make a fuss about our situation. Things being as they are, once one issue is there, somebody is going to think, `well, we'll match that. Or we'll better it'. Another reason was that after the events of the past six weeks, the climate is such that some absolute idiot in the North could have said `we'll defend those poor fellows, we'll stand up for them'."

And it wasn't only the absolute idiot-in-the-street that concerned them.

"What I find more sinister is that it's more fodder for the sort of person whom it suits to claim that Protestants aren't safe in the Republic," said Mr Drennan. "Push that button and you'll find that's exactly how Dr Paisley reacted to it - that it's typical, that Catholics are under pressure in the North and so Protestants in the South are targeted. He is not our spokesman. We know that this is very much an isolated incident in the South, virtually unprecedented. It really was a bolt from the blue."

All three had prefaced the interview by speaking with huge warmth about the people of Monaghan across all the religious communities. Though they are Northerners (one of them from the Shankill, who remembers "carrying the strings of the banners in Orange marches as a child") none has any desire to rush back across the Border.

Still, once the media dam had been broken by the BBC yesterday week, the political point-scoring continued on its merry way. Even while those most directly concerned by the threats prayed for silence, Monaghan County Councillor Noel Maxwell declared without contradiction (later echoed by a Fine Gael councillor) at last Monday's meeting that the telephone threat carried a "recognised code word".

It didn't. Mr Maxwell, an Independent councillor and former grand master of the Orange lodge, nonetheless used this "fact" in a fiery speech to bolster his claim that he knew "from the highest authorities" that the CRF "do exist and are to be taken seriously". This, despite the fact that local gardai, though careful to take appropriate precautions, give the "amateurish" efforts little credence and admit that they can't even say if the group exists.

The families at the sharp end of the threats weighed up the risks and wondered. They were certain, for example, that "families" had been threatened. In fact, they weren't. They believed ministers in the town were specifically targeted. It was the "Monaghan area" that was specified.

One undisputed and worrying fact however, was that the anonymous letter-writer knew his territory. The recipient, they noted, was the only minister whose name or private address did not appear on his church notice board, yet the sender had both. Furthermore, the CRF - though it has never actually claimed responsibility for anything, according to Garda sources - has claimed to be active before.

"We believe they were the ones who were in Darkley," said Jack Drennan, referring to the horrific murders carried out in the Elim church some years ago, "and that rang all kinds of bells in our heads. Whether the threats were genuine or from a crank, they were well dressed up. By using that name, they were pressing all the right buttons to get fear and, when you fear, you get into your own little corner for security."

And driving people into their own little corners, they know, is precisely the problem that underpins the tragedy of Northern Ireland.

They took Garda advice to lock doors they had never locked before (Monaghan has a negligible crime rate, probably because of the intensive policing of Border areas) and check under cars.

Though they had chosen not to tell their children, they had to warn them once the news broke. One little boy became nervous about a short walk to Sunday school which he usually took without a thought.

Rumours flew in the congregations that as many as three clergymen had packed up and left. None of them did. All three declare that it has made them more determined to stay "and do the job we believe we were called to do".

After the Garda visit, Mr Harvey and his wife called to another minister freshly arrived from England. "We chatted for a long time and we prayed together and since that night, I've had a tremendous sense of peace. That's not an airyfairy comment by the way - it's not a head in the clouds attitude. We're still careful to take the advice we've been given."

Had any Catholic priests been in touch? The question hangs in the air, amid palpable unease. A priest from the Montfort Fathers had phoned to sympathise, one answered. It was clearly an issue they wished to avoid.

When The Irish Times later spoke to Father Brian Early, the senior diocesan Catholic priest, on Wednesday, he seemed rather surprised to be asked if he had been in contact: "We only heard about it on Friday . . ."

Had he anything to say to them? "I was sorry to hear of them having received the letter . . . It's a threat I feel will never materialise."

Through all the doubts and fears, however, the one unshakeable sense in the area - only four miles from the Border - is one of mutual harmony and respect.

"The communities here are very much integrated," says Martin Smyth, editor of the Northern Standard in the town, "so these threats are very, very surprising. I have a feeling it's just someone trying to create a division between them . . . but you get that in every society."

The good neighbourly relations are nothing new. Walter Pringle, an Independent councillor, who is a strong Evangelical, recalls: "My father died in 1951 when I was three and we were left in poverty. But it was those Catholic families around us who helped us survive, to cut the corn, to dig the potatoes . . .

"They all moved in when the threshing started, when we desperately needed help but couldn't afford to pay for it. That's how we survived. That has never changed . . ."