He was an 88-year-old Orangeman from Portadown, and his eldest brother fought at the Somme in 1916. He missed the parade to Drumcree last year because his wife was ill. He hadn't missed it for "well over 60 years" before. So every day during those first few civil days of the standoff he drove to the Church of the Ascension, parked his car and spent a few hours with "the brethren".
His brother survived the Somme but was arrested by the Germans and held prisoner of war for the next two years. He died a few years ago. His brother was lucky - 24 young men from the parish were killed in the first World War, most at the Somme.
The old man knew most of them. They are why he has paraded to Drumcree every year, that and to celebrate his Protestant culture, as his ancestors had done since 1807. Memory and continuity are all, he would have you believe, his eyes brimming with tears for those gone many decades before most of us were born.
But the old man and his memories dissipated when an uglier type of Orangeman took over at Drumcree later that week. He was about darker business; it is he who has been dictating the agenda at Drumcree since 1995, not those old memories of a declining identity. It is he who has helped to bring the Church of Ireland to its current sorry pass, wracked in conscience, divided in fact, impotent by choice. He is the tail, it is the dog. He wags, it contorts.
How to readjust this out-of-joint situation, that is the question. The Church of Ireland has procrastinated for four years and it is about to do so again.
At its General Synod in Dublin today, a curtailed debate (allocated a maximum of just 1 1/2 hours) will most likely agree to three resolutions from the standing committee on sectarianism.
They distance the church from the Orange Order. They will prevent the display of national flags on church buildings. And they will endorse the three "good behaviour" pledges sought by the Prim ate, Dr Robin Eames, of the Portadown Orangemen before they would be welcome at the Drumcree service, and request that, should this not happen, the rector, the Rev John Pickering, and the select vestry at Drumcree withdraw the Portadown lodges' invitation to attend the service.
Dr Eames's pledges call on the Orangemen to pledge "the avoidance of any action before or after the service which diminishes the sanctity of that worship; obedience to the law of the land before and after the service; respect for the integrity of the Church of Ireland by word and action and the avoidance of the use of all church property or its environs in any civil protest following the service".
Dr Eames first outlined the pledges in his presidential address to the Armagh Diocesan Synod last October. To date the Portadown Orangemen have simply ignored them, with no obvious ill-effect.
The standing committee, after much deliberation, decided not to propose at the General Synod that bishops' powers be extended to allow for episcopal intervention, by Dr Eames at Drumcree, for instance, should Mr Pickering and his vestry refuse to withdraw the invitation to Portadown Orangemen in the event of their continuing to ignore or refusing to agree to Dr Eames's three pledges.
In its report to the General Synod, the sub-committee explained that in the church it is argued that "the basis of the exercise of episcopal authority is moral and didactic, not legal and juridical". It said it was understood "discussion within the House of Bishops indicated significant opposition to such legislation (extending bishops' powers), including opposition from a majority of bishops".
The bishops also felt such a proposal was unlikely to win the support of the General Synod and, should it succeed, it would profoundly alter the relationship between parochial and diocesan authorities within the church. The sub-committee, however, recognised that this "placed a heavy responsibility on the rector and select vestry of Drumcree."
It further recognised "the pain and suffering experienced in the past few years by the rector and select vestry of Drumcree" as well as their suffering "in what has become their tragic dilemma", while also recognising "the pain, the voice and the will of the rest of the Church of Ireland". But recognition was all it offered.
Dealing with Drumcree in its report on sectarianism to the General Synod, the sub-committee said: "Only moral authority can be exercised as church law now stands." It had to consider whether such a situation was acceptable, it said. "In particular it has had to consider whether the exercise of moral authority may not be fatally damaged by unwillingness to back it with legal authority, if that moral authority is ignored or resisted," it said. Recognition once again, and that is all.
In real terms this means the decision as to whether the Orange service at Drumcree goes ahead this year is left to the very people least able to say No, even if there were a will. Living in the situation of and among those they are expected to slight, who would expect it to be otherwise for Mr Pickering and his vestry?
Drumcree Five beckons and with it more verbal pain from churchmen who could have done more. Then, as probable destruction and possible killings take place in Northern Ireland, it will be realised that the Church of Ireland has merely wrestled with its conscience and that both have lost once again.