NORTHERN Ireland may be on the brink of yet another potentially lethal confrontation, but the children on the Garvaghy Road aren't frightened.

"We'll clatter the Orangemen with bricks and bottles if they come down here," boasts Sean, who wears a Manchester United shirt and says that his hero is Eric Cantona. His friend Michael tells how the RUC and British army swamped the area last year and a big helicopter nearly took off my daddy's roof".

Colm says that his mother is scared of the Orangemen but that he will protect her. The boys, aged from seven to nine, hate loyalists.

They start a mock fight, kicking and punching each other with gusto. "That's what we'll do to the Orangies if we get them," shouts Sean.

Tomorrow morning, around 1,000 Orangemen will attend a religious service in Drumcree Church as they have done for 190 years. They then aim to march down the nationalist Garvaghy Road on their way back to the Orange Hall in the town centre.

The Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, is to announce today whether the parade will be permitted. Either way, trouble seems inevitable. If the march is allowed, nationalists will stage a sit-down protest and will be dragged off the road by the RUC. The IRA will undoubtedly "retaliate" for such action, observers predict.

If the parade is banned, then last year's violence could be repeated. Tens of thousands of Orangemen descended on Drumcree. Illegal roadblocks were set up across the North. Rampaging mobs attacked Catholic homes and petrol-bombed the RUC. Two Catholics were killed and around Pounds 30 million worth of destruction was caused. After a five-day standoff, the authorities reversed their decision and the parade went ahead.

Portadown is a rigidly segregated town - 22,000 Protestants and 8,000 Catholics live mainly in separate housing estates. Most of the Catholic estates are just off the Garvaghy Road. The rest of the town is bedecked in Union Jacks and red-white-and-blue bunting but, on the Garvaghy Road, Tri- colours fly from every lamp-post.

"It doesn't make sense that the Orange Order wants to march down here," says Breandan Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy Residents' Coalition. On their way to Drumcree Church, the Orangemen take a non-contentious route, via the Corcrain Road. "They should go home that way, too," says Mr Mac Cionnaith. He believes that loyalists march down the Garvaghy Road simply in order to assert their supremacy.

"Nationalists have been under threat in Portadown ever since it was built," he says. "Orange bands gathered at St Patrick's Church 130 years ago, attacked worshippers and knocked the priest unconscious." Every decade has been marked by anti-Catholic violence, he says. He recounts a litany of shootings, stonings and beatings where men were left on the roadside for dead.

"The Croppies won't lie down any longer," he warns. "The Orangernen claim that this march is traditional, but the rules of 200 years ago don't apply today."

Mr Mac Cionnaith (39) is a former republican prisoner. He has just been elected to the local council. A small, wiry man in jeans and a leather jacket, he is every inch the typical nationalist community activist. He works 18-hour days and survives on a diet of mostly tea and toast.

The unemployment rate is 50 per cent among Portadown Catholics who are three times more likely to be unemployed than their Protestant neighbours, he says. Resistance to the parade engenders a sense of pride in his community, he says.

Some locals believe that Dr Mowlam - who has a more friendly, outgoing manner towards nationalists than her predecessors - will deal effectively with the Orangemen. Mr Mac Cionniath is more cynical: "I don't trust the smile of an Englishman and I trust the smile of an Englishwoman even less."

Still, he hopes that the march will not go ahead. "If the British government gives in because of the threat of loyalist violence, the message to young nationalists in Belfast, Derry, Armagh and Tyrone will be that violence pays.

At least 24 hours before the Drumcree march, the Garvaghy Road is put under "virtual martial law", he says. "British army helicopters hover overhead, the streets are saturated with heavily-armed soldiers and RUC men. People are confined to their homes. Police with Alsatians patrol the place. An Orange march on the Garvaghy Road means oppression."

DUP councillor Mervyn Carrick sees thing differently. He says that the residents wouldn't be hemmed in if they didn't present a threat to the marchers.

"The Orangemen don't do anything intimidatory. They carry a Union flag and are accompanied by an accordian band playing hymns.

"It takes IS minutes for them to go down the Garvaghy Road. If the residents went into their houses and stayed inside for 15 minutes, there would be no trouble. They could get on with their Sunday duties afterwards. But some people obviously go out of their way to be offended."

Mr Carrick is enraged that there are Tricolours on the Garvaghy Road. "At least 33 of them have been counted," he says. "The RUC should be sent in to take them all down. No foreign flag should fly in Portadown."

He accuses the residents of trying to turn the area into a republican ghetto. Law-abiding loyalists should always have access to the queen's highway, he says. "The Orangemen of Portadown are solid, respectable citizens - men of stature and discipline. They have created economic prosperity in this town and given many Catholics jobs. It's disgraceful that they are denied their right to march."

James (26) joined the Orange Order last year in order to defend his community from "the nationalist onslaught". The right to march is the right to exist, he says. "We will not be treated like the Jews in Nazi Germany. If the parade is banned then we will take to the streets in defence of our civil and religious liberties."

Joel Patton (47) is a district master of the Orange Order and leader of the hardline Spirit of Drumcree faction. The deep emotional symbolism of parades for the Protestant community should never be underestimated, he says.

He recalls how, as a four-year-old, he didn't sleep for a week with excitement before his first Orange march. He argues that by attempting to have Orange parades banned, nationalists are engaging in a form of ethnic cleansing. "They are trying to stamp out our culture tradition. It's a continuation of the IRA campaign by other means."

Loyalists have never stopped nationalists expressing their cultural identity, he says. "We don't interfere with their Irish dancing, Irish language or Gaelic games. They should give us the same freedom. Drumcree is a fight against tyranny. We are standing up for our rights.

The women of the Garvaghy Road are just as eager to assert their rights. They have set up a Greenham Common-style peace camp along the march route. Journalists and camera crews from all over the world drop in. "I've met ones from Canada, Japan and Germany this morning alone,"

says one woman, proud of this new air of cosmopolitanism on the Garvaghy Road.

The women think that the authorities and the Orange Order will treat them better "if the world is watching". Drumcree community centre is bustling with women preparing food for their friends in the camp. "Grow Your Own Dope - Plant A Man," reads a poster on the wall.

An English journalist unwittingly wanders in and asks if he can buy a drink. A woman looks at him in bewilderment. "You will get none of the strong stuff in here," she says. He explains that he only wants a cup of tea and he promises to bring back the cup.

The women have bough in enough food to last them a week in case the area comes under siege from Orangemen. The shops are sold out of frozen food and coal. Children and elderly relations have been sent away in case the violence becomes intense.

Claire says that fear is a way of life for Catholics in Portadown.

"All the facilities, the swimming pool, the health centre, the bingo hall and the shops are at the Protestant end of Portadown," she says.

"It can be very dangerous crossing through the town, especially at night. Even when we go shopping we change our names so as not to sound Catholic. The women become Wendy and Sandra, the men William and Sammy.

despite their concern about the coming weekend, the women in the camp are in good humour. They sit up at night singing and telling stories. They say that they miss their men and they would need a visit from Swampy, the protester from England who tunnels into the ground to subvert road- builders.

"Wouldm't he be the boy to deal with the Orangemen?" one woman quips and the camp erupts in laughter.