The first hint to the Cabinet of the Garvaghy cave-in came through Maryfield, reports Geraldine Kennedy, Political Correspondent

"A BLACK cloud without any silver lining" is how the Taoiseach views the implication's of the RUC decision to allow the Orange parade down the Garvaghy Road.

Like most of the Government, he witnessed six months of meticulous work on the problem, since the ending of the IRA ceasefire, thrown back in his face on Thursday. The genuine fear now is that Garvaghy Road is another watershed, equivalent to the Ulster Workers' strike in 1974.

Behind the "widespread anger and deep concern conveyed by Mr Bruton to Mr Major on Thursday night, there is a blacker pessimism in Government circles this weekend about the future of Northern Ireland than there was after the Canary Wharf bombing in February. The events surrounding Sir Hugh Annesley's abrupt reversal of the decision about Garvaghy Road is seen by senior sources as a threat to democratic fundamentals of the Northern Ireland State.

There are many sound reasons why this view is emerging from Government sources in the studied wake of Thursday's events.

The Government had deliberately refrained from making any comments on the stand-off at Garvaghy Road, fearing that any public intervention could exacerbate an already bad situation. But it was in close, and constant, touch with events in Northern Ireland in the run-up to the Twelfth, presumably through the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference at Maryfield, if not at higher levels.

It was aware of, and supported, the efforts being made by church leaders at local level to defuse the stand-off, and genuinely believed up to noon on Thursday that a compromise could be reached.

The first hint that the Government got of the impending cave-in to the Orange Order came at noon, when community contacts on the Garvaghy Road tipped off the Maryfield secretariat that trucks were being moved by the RUC.

Mr Sean O hUiginn, secretary of the Anglo-Irish division of Foreign Affairs, told Mr Paddy Teahon, secretary of the Department of the Taoiseach, that it seemed as if the RUC was going to put the Orange march down the road.

Very shortly after noon on Thursday, Mr Teahon phoned Mr John Holmes, diplomatic private secretary to Mr Major, in Downing Street to ask whether the parade was going to be allowed down the Garvaghy Road. He was informed that there had been a change in the RUC decision.

Mr Teahon immediately appealed to Mr Holmes to do all that they could to ensure that the RUC treated local residents with the utmost care.

Mr Bruton, in Paris, and Mr Spring, in Bosnia, were devastated.

Once again, a decision with breath-taking implications for Anglo-Irish relations was taken without prior consultation. There was no advance notice in the formal sense. Furthermore, the RUC decision ran counter to the principles of "parity of esteem" agreed by both Governments and enshrined in the Downing Street Declaration and the Framework Document.

Senior Government sources see these breaches as nothing in present circumstances, compared with the line that has been drawn in the sand in Northern Ireland.

They are absolutely convinced that the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, was informed by the Northern Ireland Office on Wednesday night of the reversal of the RUC decision about the march. They know, from their contacts on the ground, that everything went quiet in the Orange camp that night.

Some sources even believe that Sir Hugh Annesley had to reverse his decision because of a threatened mutiny in the RUC ranks.

The overall judgment of the Government, at senior political and official levels, is that the multi-party talks and the peace process itself have been seriously, if not irrevocably, damaged by Thursday's events.

Some sources suggest privately that the objective circumstances are there to warrant asking Mr Trimble to re-dedicate himself to the six Mitchell principles, the last of which rules out the threat of violence. But they know that they cannot say so because they have to work with him publicly.

They also realise that the British government and the RUC have given the biggest propaganda weapon to Sinn Fein and the IRA on the decommissioning of arms.

The Taoiseach and the Tanaiste have been put in an impossible position with no option but to plough forward on the political front with heavy hearts and little hope for the future in Northern Ireland.