He's the gander that survived the bomb . . . his new name is Grumpy

It might have been more serious the night the peace wreckers drove their 500lb car bomb up the main street of Moira, just half a mile off the M1 motorway west from Belfast. They left it outside the RUC station. Mr Heaney's property, the house in which he was born 50 years ago, was on the opposite side of a narrow side street.

After 11pm a 20-minute warning was phoned to police. Mr Heaney was in bed. Across the landing was his brother, Colum. In another bedroom was his father, Joseph, 86. ''Get you out of there,'' was the frantic command from the RUC officer at the door.

The brothers managed to dress the old man. They were surveying their getaway from an archway leading from a courtyard on to the main street, the A6 to Lurgan, when the explosion shook the property to its foundations. They were thrown ten feet along the funnel of the arch, cut and bruised.

The cat leapt out of the debris, never to be seen again. The pig was the only victim in the entire village. It was one of 1200 farmed by Mr Heaney. His elderly father was badly shaken, but survived. Every bit as tough was the guard that Mr Heaney had on his property, a 13-year-old gander with a vicious temper, a thick neck and (of late) a thoroughly irascible disposition. ''He flares up more than he used to, and he'll break the leg of anyone he doesn't know, but he's the gander that survived the bomb,'' says Mr Heaney. The gander flares up to emphasise the point. His new name is Grumpy.

The spirit of resilience is infectious in Moira, an elegant and conspicuously affluent commuter base for Belfast, 17 miles distant. The total damage, within a range of up to 250 yards from the blast, was estimated at #3.5m by the Compensation Agency. For a population of less than 3000 that works out at around #1200 an unscathed head.

''There are a lot of villages in Northern Ireland that would be quite happy about a bomb blast to give them a chance to rebuild and start again,'' says the man who runs the barber shop. He moved out of a courtyard complex off the Main Street to give temporary accommodation to the video shop, blasted out of its normal premises opposite the RUC station. ''We didn't need that here.''

Plaques are everywhere. The Northern Ireland Amenity Council's Best Kept Small Town 1990. The NI Tourist Board's Ulster In Bloom winner in the small town and village sections six times between 1981 and 1987.

Despite the legacy of the blast, Moira still gives off a comfortable and reassuring air along the main street where the fruit shop is called The Orchard, the off licence is Tipplers, the flower shop is The Barrow.

It should be staunchly loyalist territory, a base for a majority No vote, but the local expectation is that Moira may surprise local Ulster Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, Jeffrey Donaldson, who has contrived to get a foot in both camps, and ended up with what constituents observe caustically as splinters in his backside from sitting too long on the fence.

Donaldson, only a few months ago seen as the coming man, aged only 35, in the UUP ranks, set out his stall with the No campaign, but has gone very quiet after attempting a plea for renewed unity within the party, regardless of the outcome of today's vote. He may have miscalculated, at the cost of his future career. His opting out of the United Unionist camp's No rallies can scarcely have done enough to earn him much appreciation from UUP leader David Trimble, who was left to carry the party's Yes campaign through a difficult last week, and now appears to be emerging as the strongest finisher.

Donaldson, like fellow Orangeman Trimble, has had to answer to the Loyal Orders, but unlike Trimble, appears not to have had the courage to defy them. As an Assistant Grand Master, Donaldson appears to have hitched his star with the people who might have helped to vote him into a 16,000 majority in the constituency, but will be of little use if the UUP strike him off the slate for the new Assembly. Donaldson's political plight could illustrate the speed of change in the Unionist psyche.

Surprisingly few were prepared to commit themselves to a No vote in Moira yesterday. ''I'll be voting No because I don't understand the Agreement,'' declared one woman. ''I tried to read it. They're going to take the Army off the streets and we should be free to walk about wherever we want.'' One friend nodded vigorously in agreement. Another looked bemused. She would not be voting at all, she said. ''They can do what they like.''

Elsewhere, the mood is more considered. A Don't Know in the village library was advising the woman behind the counter that the Agreement document required to be read twice. He had still not made up his mind how to vote, and it was clear that the whole question was causing him anxious soul-searching.

In the hall of the Methodist Church, where stained glass windows have already been replaced after the blast, the mood was strongly for Yes. Mrs Gertrude Irwin said: ''I am prepared to put my hand into the hand of any Catholic and walk towards a better Ireland - and you can quote me.'' In a cafe down the street two women were finishing their cup of tea. They had just been for their Thursday morning cut and rinse, and they wore matching bronze sandals. The sun was shining, but one of them had a plastic Rainmate which she was preparing for when they stepped outside. How would they be voting? ''In the appropriate box,'' said the one called Mrs Hall, and she went to the toilet. Her companion, Nan, waited then approached, twirling the Rainmate. She confided with a big smile: ''It's not for the rain, just for the hair in the wind. And it's going to be a Yes.''