While one should never regard anything in history as inevitable, close observers of the events surrounding the Drumcree church service in recent days can be forgiven for experiencing that feeling of inevitability. Approaching Sunday's parade, there was the sense of being driven by events over which one had no control - a sense that events were in free-fall. For many it no doubt brought to mind Karl Marx's dictum, ". . . history repeats itself - the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

But lest casual observers missed the point, let me draw it to their attention. The history of 1998 did not repeat itself in 1999 in at least one respect. Portadown District LOL No 1 did not traditionally parade to their Service of Morning Prayer at Drumcree Parish Church.

This parade was undertaken by Armagh County Grand Lodge. Portadown District is, at least in theory, still encamped on the hill at Drumcree waiting a resolution to the return route of its 1998 parade.

The major difference in the 1999 parade, obvious to anyone, is that Portadown District has obeyed the ruling of the Parades Commission that, "participants shall disperse no later than 2.30 p.m. from Drumcree Parish Church". Events thus far are not, as feared by many, a mirror image of 1998. Do we detect some sort of "seismic shift"?

The Orange Institution still holds firmly to the right of members of Portadown District to return to Portadown town centre from their annual church service by the main arterial route of the Garvaghy Road.

But a number of factors have come together over the past 12 months, which have, perhaps, helped to reshape thinking.

The negative image presented by the constant use of parades and protest rallies, some of which resulted in violence, has not enhanced the image of the dispute as being about a "walk from church". The repetitive condemnation of violence by the Orange Institution, with the issuing of press releases, has been ignored, as the world preferred to come to its conclusions from what it actually saw.

As Ruth Dudley Edwards put it in her recent book, with reference to the Portadown District Master, Harold Gracey, in the run-up to the 1997 parade: "It was clear that no one could move Gracey from his belief that this issue was simply a matter of right and wrong. He believed, as the Book of Common Prayer puts it, that he that `doeth the thing which is right, and speaketh the truth from his heart . . . shall never fall' ". However, perhaps there is now dawning, the realisation that though the cause is "just", it can be lost by violence.

The "force of numbers" argument advocated recently by Ian Paisley jnr, himself not a member of the institution, is evidently one not attempted thus far in the dispute this year. The dangers of such a strategy should be obvious to even the dimmest.

To bring vast numbers on to the streets under any circumstances is a high-risk strategy. To adopt this policy in a volatile situation is the height of stupidity. Perhaps it is beginning to be realised that the argument advocated 30 years ago against the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, concerning the risk of bringing vast numbers on to the streets in protest and not accepting the consequences of the violence which resulted, applies equally today in the present dispute.

The realisation by some particularly close to the situation, that the institution, not for the first time, was perhaps being used by politicians to suit their own agendas, may have contributed to a rethink after 12 months of protracted dispute.

Pressure to think again has come from various quarters both outside and inside the institution. An example of the pressure of public opinion was editorials in the two main local newspapers, the Belfast Telegraph and the Newsletter, urging restraint and dialogue.

While some members of the institution may want to disregard the more recent Parades Commission survey, on the grounds that because it paid for it, it must be tainted, it would unwise to disregard it completely. This survey, which showed that of 82 per cent of those sympathetic to the institution, 80 per cent favoured dialogue, was conducted independently by Research and Evaluation Services.

Perhaps it is just beginning to dawn on those with responsibility for making decisions on Drumcree that you cannot conduct a campaign for the right to exercise your traditional walk from morning prayer at Drumcree Parish Church without at least the tacit support of the main Protestant churches.

The response of the Archbishop, Dr Eames, and the Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Lockington, himself an Orangeman, has added to the general pressure of external forces to seek a new way of resolving this dispute.

Voices of sanity have been raised from within as attempts have been made to present a rational case for dealing with disputes in ways other that the traditional confrontation. But pressure from within the order was most obvious when the county grand lodges, with one exception, decided not to support the proposal to present a collective force of numbers at Drumcree on July 12th.

The most significant factor in the run-up to Drumcree this year must be the revelation that four Orangeman with the "knowledge and approval" of Portadown District LOL.

No 1, met in "face-to-face" negotiations with representatives of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition.

Whether or not this is a truly "seismic shift" on the part of the members of Portadown District will be revealed over the next week. But we wait patiently to see a "seismic shift" on the part of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition.

My question to the residents of the Garvaghy Road in this column two years ago still remains unanswered.

"In what circumstances will you not object to the valid expression of a religion, culture and identity, held by the majority of the population of Northern Ireland, and not obstruct that expression by blocking the return route of the parade along the Garvaghy Road from Morning Prayer at Drumcree Parish Church?"

The Rev Brian Kennaway is Convenor, Education Committee, Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland