"THE Protestants have never wanted us here," says the middle aged man standing outside Our Lady's Catholic Church in Harryville where loyalists have held a picket for the past five months.

Every week, on his way to Saturday evening Mass, he passes a crowd of up to 600 jeering protesters, shouting sectarian abuse. Worshippers have been pelted with bricks and bottles. They have been jostled and spat upon.

A fire cracker was thrown at an old man with one leg. A woman was dragged from her car which was then wrecked. That's what passes for "normality" in Harryville.

Tonight the situation could become even worse. Twenty two loyalist bands and up to 1,000 marchers plan to parade past the church and hold a rally nearby. Despite a heavy police presence some parishioners fear an outbreak of violence.

"We could be risking our lives going to that Mass," says the Catholic man. "I don't know where this whole thing will end." About 300 people regularly attend the Saturday service.

At first, the priests spoke out vociferously against the picket. Father Frank Mullan compared the violence to Kristallnacht, the night in November 1938 when the Nazis turned on the Jews, destroying synagogues and smashing so many shop fronts and windows' that the streets of Berlin glistened with broken glass.

But recently the clerics in Harryville will not talk to the media. One priest who answered the telephone to me would not even give his name. "They think that keeping quiet might placate the protesters," says a parishioner. "It's the silence of the scared."

There has been plenty to fear recently. A priest's car was burnt. Another, visiting a certain street, was ordered to leave under threat of death. The parochial house was burgled. There was an attempt to burn down the church.

Ballymena is 80 per cent Protestant and the heart of Northern Ireland's Bible belt. The Rev Ian Paisley is the local MP. The working class district of Harryville is particularly staunch, 98 per cent Protestant and 100 per cent loyalist.

The Catholics who attend Our Lady's do not live in the immediate vicinity. The church is seen as a foreign intrusion. "It should never have been built," says a protester. "All this land was Protestant except one piece. The Catholic owner left it to Rome on his deathbed and they built a church in the 1970s as a snub to Protestants."

Set behind huge steel railings, Our Lady's looks more like a fortress than a house of God. There is high sensor security lighting outside and drop bars on the heavy wooden doors. They have withstood stones and petrol bombs.

Traces of the letters FTP ("F--the Pope") linger above the main entrance. Someone has worked hard to remove other obscenities from the walls. Stained glass windows are usually the most prized feature of any church. But in Our Lady's they are hidden behind thick metal grilles which seem to stretch to the clouds.

The adjoining parochial house is no better. The windows are grilled and padlocked. The priests have moved to a safer part of town.

The picket is organised by the Harryville Residents' Association. It is protesting at nationalists in the neighbouring village of Dunloy who have blocked Orange Order marchers on their way to a Presbyterian church.

A spokesman for the association explains the logic: "When the Roman Catholics in Dunloy let the loyalists march, then the loyalists in Harryville will let the Roman Catholics go to Mass in peace." He agrees that the picket is intimidatory and that Massgoers in Harryville have committed no "crime".

This man cannot be written off as an ignorant thug. In his late 40s, he is mild mannered and softly spoken. He wishes to remain anonymous. The association's statements are unsigned. Catholics claim that this prevents negotiation.

"We are faceless men," the spokesman admits, "and that's how we want it. Our identity needn't be known because we don't want to negotiate. There is nothing to talk about. If the Dunloy march gets through, everything will be solved."

He agrees that many of the protesters hate Catholics but explains this as a hard reality: "Northern Ireland is a society where prejudice is in built. Hatred didn't start in Harryville and it won't end here either."

ALL the main Protestant church leaders, and many unionist politicians, have condemned the picket. But the association spokesman insists that the picket has strong local support: "It's like voting for Paisley. Nobody admits doing it yet he is always re elected with a massive majority."

Certainly, few residents questioned seemed to be opposed to the picket. Most were indifferent. Any objections were on the grounds of traffic chaos. Everyone thought that permitting the Dunloy march was the solution.

Mr Declan O'Loan, an SDLP councillor in Ballymena, rejects linking the situation in the two areas as Catholics are not demanding to march with bands in Harryville. He believes that the picket is really motivated by the small but steady Catholic population growth in the borough. The SDLP hopes to increase its seats from two to four on the 26 member council after the May elections.

Mr O'Loan, a school teacher and father of five, lives in a modern, detached house in a middle class district. Ballymena Catholics are mainly white collar workers and professionals. "They are moderate people who don't support Sinn Fein or the IRA," he says. "But loyalists expect Catholics to be forever downtrodden. They make remarks about us driving to Mass in `big cars'."

Ms Beth Reid, a district nurse, was dragged from her car by protesters who jumped on to the bonnet and wrecked it. "I was terrified," she says, "but I went back next week. Nothing will stop me going to Mass."

Some families with young children have chosen to go to another Catholic church in a quieter area, but most parishioners have been remarkably loyal to Our Lady's.

Several protesters have been charged with disorderly behaviour, although some nationalists would like to see tougher police action. Mr O'Loan praises the RUC for keeping the loyalists farther back from the church in recent weeks.

But he is worried that the decision to hold a band parade tonight, and not just the regular picket, signifies that the organisers are upping the ante.

He points out that the Northern Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew, has the power to ban such gatherings. "The band parade could well end in serious violence," he says. "Even if things don't deteriorate any further, the abusive, aggressive picket could continue indefinitely. Are Catholics expected to put up with this sort of behaviour for good?"