“We insist that everything’s non-sectarian”, says Roland Phelps of Galantas Gold. “We’re very careful about that.”

It’s a crucial message for Galantas to get across, operating as it does in Northern Ireland, which is still, twenty years on from the Good Friday Agreement, one of the most bitterly divided communities in Western Europe.

One false step in terms of community relations could spell real trouble for Galantas, if it ended up pitching the company onto one side or the other of the sectarian divide.

But perhaps more to the point, a strict non-sectarian approach can yield real benefits.

“The biggest impact is how we hire”, says Roland. “We hire in a non-sectarian way and we disburse our purchases in a non-sectarian way. That’s really the biggest social impact we can have. Jobs are number one. If you can provide people with jobs and you can do so in a way that they know they’ll be properly and fairly treated no matter which sect they come from – that’s one of the biggest impacts you can have.”

It helps of course that Roland himself stands somewhat above the sectarian fray, since he lives in Jersey, and that the company’s chairman Jack Gunter hails from Ontario, Canada, so is relatively unpartisan too.

And so far, the Galantas approach seems to have been working.

Relations with the locals remain on a good footing, primarily because of the blindness to sect, but also because the company has striven over the years to be a good corporate citizen in general.

There was a time when the company’s Omagh mine was the only operating precious metals mine in the UK, although just lately it’s been idle, awaiting new permissions and new capital for expansion.

The requisite permits are now in, and Roland is just about to start on a serious round of fundraising to help bring production back up to a targeted production rate of around 30,000 ounces per year.

But he’s always mindful that the consent of the community in which Galantas is operating can make a huge difference to the prospects of success of failure.

Which is why when he mentions the 60 conditions that the authorities have said need to be met before production can begin he does so without any sense of grievance at all.

“Some are conditions that need to be met in advance”, he says, “and some are conditions precedent, relating to things like noise. They’re all pretty reasonable. As far as the planning consent goes, that’s fine.”

Since Galantas previously had an operating mine at Omagh, much of the required noise mitigation protection is already in place, and the company is used to observe what it calls a “Quiet Sundays policy”.

The company’s own position as a landowner and occasional purchaser of new parcels when they become available gives it a unique insight into how the neighbours operate.

Roland describes how access to neighbouring land can sometimes be attained by allowing the relevant farmers to harvest silage from the company’s own ground.

It’s that sort of deal at the micro-level that can really begin to build trust in a community.

“If people know you’re a landholder, they know you’re rooted, you’re connected”, says Roland. “We have the same concerns. And it also means we can show leadership in the way we do things.”

Which brings us back round to the sectarian issue. If Galantas can show it has an interest both in nourishing the land and in nourishing Northern Ireland’s diverse communities, then it will surely long be a welcome figure in the local business landscape.