The contentious Orange Order Twelfth of July feeder parade past the Ardoyne shops in north Belfast, which flared into serious violence last year, concluded last night without serious incident.
This is the first time in recent years that all of the controversial Orange Order parades passed off without major disturbances, raising hope of similar direct or indirect accommodations in future years between Orangemen and nationalist residents groups.
So far this "marching season" - the Tour of the North parade in north Belfast, Whiterock in west Belfast, Drumcree in Portadown, and now the Ardoyne parade - has had no serious trouble.
Just three bottles and four fireworks were thrown as the feeder parade of three bands and four Orange lodges paraded by the Ardoyne shops. They took five minutes to pass. The Orangemen marched without music to a single drumbeat, as directed by the Parades Commission.
Compared with last year there was a huge scaling-down of the security presence at Ardoyne. There was no British army presence in the area - nor in any part of Belfast during yesterday's parades - and unlike last year the customary high steel screens separating Orange marchers from nationalist protesters were absent.
Police in riot gear flanked the marchers and band members as they paraded by the shops at 8pm. A group of 150 nationalists protesters gathered on the side of the road, in accordance with the Parades Commission determination, behind a large banner declaring "Make Sectarianism History". Fairly soon afterwards the parade police started moving out of the area.
Five minutes before the parade four buses, three of them containing supporters of the parade, were driven through the shops area to the nearby loyalist Hesketh Road. There was some catcalling between some loyalists on the buses and some nationalists at the shops but no trouble.
The night was marked by strict and careful stewarding by nationalist community activists in Ardoyne wearing green bibs and loyalist activists, wearing orange bibs, at the adjoining loyalist Twaddell Avenue. There was similar stewarding at other interface points in the area in order to avoid sectarian clashes.
Last year several blast bombs were thrown from roofs at Ardoyne by paramilitaries whom Sinn Féin sources said were republican dissidents. Two journalists and a number of police officers were injured in these attacks. Last night marshals stood on the roofs to avoid similar trouble.
Fr Aidan Troy, parish priest of Holy Cross parish, said the peaceful end to the parade was a "tribute to common sense and to hard work on all sides".
"Had it gone wrong we were in a very difficult situation. It was a win-win-win situation in the end - for the two communities and the police."
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams commended the people of Ardoyne and said it was imperative the Orange Order spoke to nationalists. "Sinn Féin and local people don't want to be involved in the type of approach that has to be done every marching season," he said. Criticising the DUP, Mr Adams said it did little to foster agreement at Ardoyne while other unionists played a positive role. Referring to the police operation, Mr Adams added: "We kept very close contact with [ the police] and argued very strongly for the type of approach which was taken. Certainly with dialogue and this type of approach there's no reason why the Orange can't have their day out and the rest of us can't have our day off."
SDLP Assembly member Alban Maginness praised what he called the "restraint on both sides and also the police operation".