The low-lying countryside around the north-eastern corner of Lough Neagh is the territory where the early, and decisive, battles of the 1798 Rebellion were fought out.
The land is saturated with the blood of the United Irishmen, whose pikes and pitchforks yielded to the sabres and muskets of the yeomanry.
The shaky coalition of idealistic Presbyterians and Catholics was shortlived, and today's electoral battle in South Antrim is solely for the hearts and minds of modern unionism.
The clear-cut contest for the constituency's Westminster seat is between the DUP and the UUP - the fundamentalist, gospel-singing Rev William McCrea, and the secularist public relations practitioner David Burnside.
Here, more than anywhere else, the outcome will hinge on the turnout. To oust the incumbent, Willie McCrea, who captured the seat at a by-election eight months ago, Mr Burnside must successfully complete his tightrope walk between the Yes and No camps in Ulster unionism and bring both out in considerable numbers to support him on polling day.
From Belfast's dormitory suburbs of Newtownabbey and Ballyclare to the rural centres of Randalstown and Antrim, the central issue being debated is the direction unionism has taken and should be taking in the post-Belfast Agreement years.
On the face of it, there are striking similarities in the line taken by the two candidates, who both deplore what they see as the current process of appeasement to republicanism. And both stress the need, long perceived, for unity and therefore strength among the unionist people.
South Antrim undoubtedly incorporates much of the ubiquitous "middle Ulster" electorate, that mercurial element whose support is constantly wooed and fought over between the UUP and DUP.
The former Ulster Unionist MP for South Antrim, Clifford Forsythe, seemed to command broad confidence in the past - he secured a massive 23,000 votes in the 1997 Westminster election, giving him a majority of 16,600. But that was on a turnout of less than 58 per cent and at a time when he had no DUP opponent. Apathy was a significant factor even then, and the issues of IRA decommissioning and reform of the RUC were not as immediate and inflammatory as today.
Campaigning in a Glengormley shopping centre on the outskirts of north Belfast at the weekend, Mr McCrea laid claim to part of Mr Forsythe's powerful position: "I knew him. He said to me, there's no difference between you and me."
Now, he says, David Trimble is basically saying he cannot trust unionist voters any more, while unionists, in fact, could not trust the UUP any more.
Mr McCrea won a 38 per cent vote against Mr Burnside's 35 per cent in the by-election last year but that was in an even more reduced turnout of 43 per cent.
He claims that his eight months in the Westminster seat have shown people that a different way is possible, and he says that Tory ministers welcomed him: "These people don't necessarily agree with my constitutional position, but they respect that I am fervent in my principles. I'm not afraid of what I stand for."
To criticism that he cynically abandoned his former Mid-Ulster base for pragmatic personal electoral reasons, he replies that he has honoured his pledge to South Antrim by opening two constituency offices there and is articulating the practical concerns of the community as a working MP.
The elderly morning shoppers in this loyalist heartland of north Belfast welcomed him warmly - some even asking him to autograph his election literature and one man offering him a new hymn to add to the 25 gospel-singing tapes he has produced so far.
Surrounded by the red-white-and-blue rosettes of his campaign supporters, he is an energetic campaigner who emphasises that his policy is to talk to people on the doorsteps. "He starts at 6.30 in the morning and he's still going at 2 a.m. the next morning," a campaign assistant remarks.
Canvassing in the leafy suburbs of Randalstown some 20 miles to the west of the constitutency, David Burnside agrees that voter apathy is the main obstacle he faces.
Co Antrim born and bred, he says he would have no divided loyalties as MP and that his long spell in professional public relations in Britain has given him an understanding of the need to win friends for unionism in London and overseas.
While he supported the Belfast Agreement, his campaign line is that its implementation has been seriously unbalanced. His bottom line is that Sinn Fein should not be allowed representation at Stormont until "credible and verifiable decommissioning" has taken place.
The Randalstown electorate is roughly 50:50 Catholic and Protestant. "I say to Catholics, `Do you want the Paisleyites to be the major party in Ulster with Sinn Fein?' " he remarks.
He takes an uncompromising stance on the proposed changes in the RUC and asserts that every Catholic he knows in the RUC is disgusted at the way the force is being treated.
On law and order, he agrees that there is an obvious anomaly in the UVF flags flying over parts of the town, and calls for tougher legislation and police action against paramilitaries engaging in drug pushing and racketeering. But he says there are clear signs that the policing reform proposals are demoralising and decimating the RUC: "Out of 206 officers in Antrim town, 25 per cent are taking the severance package. Out of 24 sergeants, only six are staying on."
He is close to the former UUP leader James Molyneaux, and the former Tory minister Norman Tebbit, who visited the constituency recently for a charity dinner, is an old friend: "I like Norman. I'm an agreement-sceptic and he's a Euro-sceptic".
His tactics on the doorsteps are to engage with the sometimes vehement challenges he faces. "If they don't call you a traitor or throw insults at you, you talk to them. I like arguments," he asserts.
None the less, signs of the difficulties which his ambivalent position on the agreement can generate emerge when one door is opened by an Alliance supporter. "I don't vote for doubtful Assembly supporters like yourself," the man tells him, pleasantly enough. "OK, there may be no Assembly after all this, but that will be due to you and the likes of you."
The apathetic unionist supporters among the constituency's 72,000 electorate will certainly agree in principle with his stance on decommissioning and on the RUC. But the question is whether they feel strongly enough that he can do something about these matters, or provide credible and practical alternatives that would unite the Yes and No camps.
Failing that, they may well stay away from the polling stations in droves yet again, leaving the advantage with what he calls the "destroy everything" policies of the DUP. The combined nationalist vote of the SDLP and Sinn Fein, on the evidence of recent elections, amounts to only about 20 per cent and offers no real challenge in the Westminster contest.
Meanwhile, local papers in south Antrim report sporadic incidents of intimidation and sectarian attacks - an occasional reminder of the distressing history of Antrim, of which the poet Robinson Jeffers wrote:
"No spot of earth where men have so fiercely for ages of time/ Fought and survived and cancelled each other . . ."