MEDIA WATCH: This week's election to the 29th Dáil reminds us how long the two Irelands have been apart.
Culturally, historically and increasingly economically, we have much in common but it is only a slight exaggeration to say that Northerners paid more attention to the recent French election than they do to Friday's poll. Outside the political class in Belfast, few could name half-a-dozen Southern politicians.
None of the photo-images of this election - Mary Harney on the back of a cart, Michael Noonan splattered with custard, Bertie Ahern chumming with the Flynns - has appeared in any of the three Belfast newspapers.
The unionist News Letter and the liberal Belfast Telegraph do not even have Dublin correspondents while coverage in the Belfast editions of the British tabloids is nil. Conversely, The Irish Times and Irish Independent sell in extremely small numbers whereas the Examiner and Evening Herald cannot even be bought up here.
In case anyone in the South feels slighted, it should be remembered that when the parties' manifestos were published a couple of weeks ago, the sections dealing with Northern Ireland received no coverage.
Did you know that Fianna Fáil is promising "an active reconciliation strategy" or that Fine Gael wants to see "genuine parity of esteem for the two traditions on the island?" Quite.
In as much as the Northern broadcast media is concerned, there is an issue, but only one. It might not be appreciated in the South but for Northern hacks this is apparently "the Sinn Féin election", which makes me wonder what historians are to call the 1918 election in future.
Nationalists have been told there is a party in the South called the PDs which had three ministerial posts in the outgoing government despite having only four seats in the Dáil. Just imagine if Sinn Féin won between three and six seats how much influence they could wield!
Unionists are probably even less plugged in. They have heard that none of the major parties will touch Sinn Féin but are inherently sceptical about the machinations of Southern politics.
There has been some comment, not only from unionists, to the effect that the Taoiseach is a hypocrite for insisting on Sinn Féin participation in the government of Northern Ireland while rejecting it for the Republic.
There is no real hypocrisy, though. First, Sinn Féin is very much part of the problem in Northern Ireland and therefore, hopefully part of the solution. It is not a party with which any democrat would actively choose to be in partnership but in Northern Ireland, needs must. In the South, there is no such need.
Second, voters on Friday are choosing a sovereign government. In Northern Ireland, as Sinn Féin MLA Francie Molloy memorably put it, Sinn Féin is helping to administer British rule in Ireland.
Sinn Féin will almost certainly increase its representation. Despite its massive financial and human resources and media attention, though, few have been predicting that it will win as many as the seven seats its nemesis the Workers Party did in 1989.
In 1948 Clann na Poblachta won 10 seats and promptly died a death. In 1957 the old Sinn Féin won four seats and none the next time out. The same happened in 1981.
Anything less than the seven seats won by the old Officials must be regarded as yet another repudiation of that kind of politics by the people of the Republic.
That repudiation would be made complete by the formation, as soon as possible after Friday, of another stable - presumably Fianna Fáil-led - government which does not rely on Sinn Féin votes in the Dáil. The peace process demands no less.
• Dr Steven King is political adviser to David Trimble