IT IS difficult to imagine Drumcree Church in Portadown, Co Armagh, as the scene of violent confrontation. Perched at the top of a hilly road, overlooking the town, it seems the essence of peace.
Rabbits jump between trees and people out walking wave to passing motorists on a sunny summer's day.
But Drumcree is busy making preparations. The grass and hedgerows of surrounding fields have been cut. The Orange Order is preparing for confrontation.
Tomorrow morning, about 1,000 Orangemen will descend on the church for their annual religious service. It will be a quiet, non contentious affair, lasting less than an hour. Then, the problems start.
The loyalists want to march down the nationalist Garvaghy Road on their 1 1/2 mile journey back to Carleton Orange Hall in the town centre.
The residents are threatening a sit down protest if the police permit the march. The RUC will announce its decision today on whether or not to re route the event.
Unless a compromise is reached, trouble seems likely. If the RUC allows the march, nationalists say they will block the road and have to be dragged away. The Orangemen are on a collision course with the RUC if it is re routed, as original happened last year. At that time, Drumcree led to some very dangerous moments for the peace process.
There was a long, tense standoff between police and marchers. About 15,000 Orangemen from all over the North arrived at the church to support their Portadown brethren. More than 1,000 RUC officers moved into the town in the biggest security operation since the ceasefires.
For three days, Drumcree teetered on the brink of serious communal violence. On several occasions, hundreds of loyalists broke through RUC lines. Stones were hurled at police. Several people were injured.
In Portadown town centre, a group of loyalists staged a support protest. Eventually, the Catholics of Garvaghy Road reluctantly agreed to let the match through.
The Rev Ian Paisley and Mr David Trimble led the parade triumphantly into Portadown. The whole affair became known as the Siege of Drumcree. It was hailed as a great unionist victory.
As the marching season gets underway this year, loyalist feelings are once again running high. This time, nationalists say that they are determined not to give in.
Portadown is a rigidly segregated town. Its 20,000 Protestants and 6,000 Catholics live largely in separate housing estates. Most of the Catholics live in the half dozen estates off the Garvaghy Road. There is widespread poverty and social deprivation.
"Unemployment is 90 per cent around here," says Breandan MacCionnaith of Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition. "The unemployment rate is three times higher for Catholics than for Protestants."
Orange parades are just another opportunity for unionists to stamp their supremacy on this town, he claims.
Drumcree Church is a five minute walk from the Garvaghy Road. On their way to the church, the Orangemen take another route, via the Corcrain Road, which brings them past some, but not as many, Catholic homes. Nationalists have not objected to this route.
"Why can't they come back that way too? Why do they have to go home via Garvaghy Road?" asks Mr MacCionnaith. He says the parade places a blanket of oppression on nationalists.
"For days beforehand, there is a very heavy British army and RUC presence. We are virtually under martial law.
"Last year, British army helicopters hovered over our homes for three days. We weren't allowed out of the area. There were 15,000 loyalists up the road. Thirty Catholic families in Craigwell Avenue were forced out of their homes.
"When a group of loyalists broke through police lines, people here were terrified. We thought they would come across the fields and attack us. It was an exercise in mass intimidation."
But for Mr Joel Patton, a member of a militant Orange Order faction, the Spirit of Drumcree, it is the Protestant community which is being victimised.
"We have been going to Drumcree for 189 years. Nobody decided to march down Garvaghy Road just to annoy Catholics. It was a religiously mixed area until Protestants were driven out. It's a form of ethnic cleansing. Protestants are forced out, an area becomes Catholic, then Orange marches are not allowed through. But we have been marching from that church for 189 years.
He can't understand the objection residents have to two wee bands and a few hundred men passing by once a year. The Order has already made several concessions, he says. "There is no more room for compromise."
The Orange Order has enjoyed a massive increase in recruitment since the stand off at Drumcree last year. Members are in fighting mood this time round. "Drumcree touched many working class Protestants," he says. "It was a potent symbol of a community fighting back."
If the RUC refuses the Order permission to walk down Garvaghy Road tomorrow, the participants "will not just go away", he says. "I don't know what form our protest will take or how long it will last but we will not surrender."
The Order's Grand Master, the Rev Martin Smyth, who stayed away from Drumcree last year, is under intense pressure to be present this year.
David Trimble's militant - stance in Portadown last year helped elect him Ulster Unionist leader. He will not want to appear to uncompromising this year - it would make bad PR internationally but he cannot afford to alienate his own base. He will have to be at Drumcree, supporting his brethren.
Breandan MacCionnaith says there will be no sit down protest if the RUC re-routes the parade away from Gervaghy Road. However, if Orangemen attempt to break through police lines and march down anyway, nationalists will block the road.
Loyalists too appear ready for a stand off. They re taking down blankets and sleeping bags from the allies in Portadown. The men are talking of sleeping in the graveyard and on the church pews. Another Siege of Drumcree seems to be in the making.
