Just a few minutes after the Orange parade was banned, three Catholic women in Tshirts and shorts set off on their own fast march up Drumcree Hill. The decision was "very, very good news" said one, even though it meant their keep-fit walk from the Garvaghy Road to Drumcree Parish Church would have to be rerouted.
"This is the last night we will be able to walk up here for a while," she said, squinting in the sunshine on a spot which in a few days will be transformed by army barricades and razor wire. "But the march hasn't been right for the last few years and it's not right now," she added.
Birds sang in the peaceful setting of Drumcree. A large funeral took place earlier in the afternoon. The Rev John Pickering said people should pray for Drumcree. "I just want it to be solved," he said.
The shutters were pulled down on the hut where the Orange protest has continued since they were first banned from marching the road. "Here we stand we can do no other," read the message over the door.
After the decision was announced, two young men stood talking outside a house across from the church. "I'm frustrated and annoyed," said one. "It is just a five-minute parade. I'm still hopeful that it will get down." Living in Drumcree around this time was a nightmare, he said. "You have to get through five major checkpoints to get home."
As news of the decision filtered through, the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road was deserted apart from a few teenagers. "I don't care what happens," said Paul (15). "I'm going away anyway. And whatever the decision was it would end in a riot." A couple of young women, watching as a massive bonfire was erected near the Protestant Edgarstown Estate, agreed. "Whatever way it went there would be trouble," said Sharon (21), looking at the piles of wooden pallets, mattresses and trees that will go up in flames for the 12th of July celebrations.
"I love this time of year. I look forward to it, the rioting and the madness. The only thing is the police don't come into the estates any more, so you don't get them chasing you as much."
Her friend, Hayley (23), was in a loyalist band for nine years. "It's very disheartening when you are not allowed to march." She pulls a baseball cap down over her 18-month-old's head. "The kids are lucky that they don't know about any of it."
Earlier, sunbathing outside her home across from the Drumcree Community Centre, off Garvaghy Road, Dana said waiting for the decision was "stomach-churning". "It's like this every year. You think they won't be allowed, but when the day comes you start to get more pessimistic," she said. Her friend said she couldn't concentrate. "I look at the kids and wonder: will he be shot? Will she be shot?" she said.
When shortly after 6 p.m. they heard the parade had been banned, they were relieved. "It's a moment of euphoria. It lasts about half an hour and then you start wondering about the repercussions," said Dana.
An elderly man on the Protestant Corcrain estate, where another huge bonfire was being built, said he didn't care that the parade was banned, "and 99 per cent of people round here don't care either. "But there is going to be trouble," he said. "There are 1,000 places in Northern Ireland where you don't go. You wouldn't go up the Falls Road in Belfast, so why go up the Garvaghy Road? Why would you go where you are not wanted?"