After two weeks of unprecedented media attention, it would be fair to assume that the people of Clogheen are wondering what hit them. Fair, perhaps, but wrong.

Far from being traumatised, the residents of this picturesque village at the foot of the Knockmealdown Mountains are revelling in their role as leaders of the resistance against the Department of Justice's policy on the dispersal of asylum-seekers.

"We've taken the might of the international press and we've weathered it. We've stood back and we're ready to rise again," declared one man at a public meeting in the village on Thursday night.

The Department wants to place 38 asylum-seekers, including six children, in the town's Vee Valley Hotel. Locals say they will accept a maximum of 10 and, until agreement is reached, a round-the-clock picket on the premises will be maintained. The unlikely protesters include mothers of young children and elderly men.

It's a hardline stance, yet locals do not make convincing extremists. Thursday's meeting was noticeable for its absence of the type of prejudicial comments about immigrants heard at public meetings elsewhere and, indeed, on a previous occasion in Clogheen.

There was strong disapproval when a man asked if the children of asylum-seekers would be tested before entering the local primary school. "Tested for what?" he was asked by several among the 250 present.

"AIDS and hepatitis, all those things," he replied. His children were in the school and he wanted to be sure they would be safe. He was forcefully challenged by a woman sitting in front of him: "Why are you dehumanising those kids? We've got AIDS here in Ireland, you know."

The school principal, Ms Margaret Quirke, said all children should be treated equally, regardless of nationality, creed or colour. She had been told that some people planned to take their children out of the school if the children of asylum-seekers were allowed in, and she wanted to know if this was the intention of anyone present.

It was difficult to maintain the ethos that "differences don't matter inside the school gates" if children were to be brought into the equation, she said. "Well, I can say my children will not be taken out," said Mr Brendan Walsh, a member of the residents' committee, to applause from the floor. The man who asked about testing for AIDS was the only one to express a doubt.

Yet it would be wrong to think Clogheen is softening its position. More than 10 asylum-seekers, locals claim, could not be accepted because the village does not have the infrastructure to support them. The commonly expressed view is that having up to 40 people with little money and nothing to do could only bring trouble.

What the outside world thinks of that view is of little consequence to the villagers. And anyway, many believe the media coverage has been favourable.

"It's been excellent," said Mr Eamonn Keating, a retired publican. "The English Independent were here the other day and gave us an excellent report." Some coverage had been negative, said Mr Michael O'Connor, "but in general it's gone very well. At least everyone knows where we are now."

For whatever reason, the paranoia experienced elsewhere is absent in the Tipperary village. In Myshall, Co Carlow, journalists were physically prevented from entering the village community hall for a public meeting on the plan to house asylum-seekers in the area. They were eventually allowed in after a vote was taken, influenced by embarrassed local politicians.

In Clogheen on Thursday, journalists were included in the list of people thanked for their support by the residents' committee chairman, Mr Dick Keating. "They've been crucified and pilloried, but they're still our friends. Don't crucify them, one day we might need them," he cautioned.

Mr Keating, a dairy farmer and cheese producer, believes the Department will be forced to change its dispersal policy because of "the stand we're taking in Clogheen". It's that very prospect of allowing a precedent to be set, however, which makes a compromise on the part of the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, and his officials highly unlikely.

Clogheen may have some more storms to weather.