The largest Orange parade in the North passed off peacefully in bright sunshine as around 20,000 marchers proceeded through south Belfast to the Ormeau Park.
They kept to a compromise route which brought them down the largely Protestant Ravenhill Road and into the back gate of the park, thus staying well away from the Catholic lower Ormeau Road.
The British army erected 20-ft-high Drumcree-style steel barriers on the three main access roads into the lower Ormeau area, including the bridge across the River Lagan which links the upper Ormeau Road, the Ormeau Park and the small lower Ormeau enclave.
Barbed wire fences were erected to keep the Orangemen in the section of the park furthest away from the lower Ormeau area, and there was a heavy RUC presence.
The march was good-humoured and well-marshalled, with watching crowds particularly large on the Ravenhill Road. It was led off in the city centre by a colour party containing three politicians: Ulster Unionist Party deputy leader Mr John Taylor, white-gloved and waving enthusiastically; his anti-Belfast Agreement colleague and former Orange grand master, the Rev Martin Smyth MP; and Mr Nigel Dodds of the Democratic Unionist Party, who was the keynote speaker in the park.
Mr Dodds spoke passionately against any power-sharing government that would include Sinn Fein. "To have the representatives of the IRA murder machine in the cabinet of Northern Ireland is one of the greatest travesties of democracy and justice it is possible to imagine.
"To have at the heart of government those who keep a private army of murderers and gangsters who will go back to murder if they do not get the demands they seek cannot be tolerated. The scandalous nature of what is expected of us is breathtaking. At Westminster, for a politician to have undeclared links with a lobbying company is enough to see him drummed out of office in ignominy and shame. Here in Northern Ireland an openly avowed link with a murder organisation means you're welcome into government and into every TV studio.
"You know in your hearts - we are not a defeated people," Mr Dodds told the cheering crowd. "For the sake of our children, let us not be diverted by those who prefer to accommodate republicans rather than make common cause with fellow unionists. "We are a people who are right to have confidence in our case."
The main villain for all the speakers was the chairman of the Parades Commission, Mr Alistair Graham, who watched the proceedings from the other side of the park fence.
He was blamed for the change of route to the Ormeau Park; the delay in the speakers coming back from lunch; and, by Mr Dodds, for accommodating IRA/Sinn Fein.
A massive security force presence prevented trouble predicted for a major sectarian flashpoint area in east Belfast last night.
About one thousand Orangemen from Ballymacarrett and other east Belfast lodges walked home along the loyalist Newtownards Road and were prevented from spilling over into the nationalist Short Strand area by some 20 RUC Land-Rovers and a similar number of British army vehicles as well as police and army with their riot gear ready.
Earlier in the evening, stones and bottles were thrown at St Malachi's Catholic church on the Newtownards Road, the church grounds being the only piece of land between the Newtownards Road and the Short Strand. The church was not damaged in the incident.