Bad weather keeps Drumcree visitors away

The security presence at Drumcree was much less marked yesterday with visitor numbers well down on Monday, possibly because of bad weather. Continuing showers were expected to keep people away early this morning, as in the small hours of yesterday when crowds dispersed in the rain after some petrol-bombs were thrown and firecrackers set off.

To date, lodges from other parts of the North have not been at the hill to protest on the organised basis of previous years following Drumcree Sunday. Nor is it now expected such lodges will be there in coming evenings. Indeed security and Orange sources believe that should tonight's "eve of the Twelfth" celebrations and the aftermath of tomorrow's parades pass off quietly, Drumcree Seven will go down as the most peaceful of all.

Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Church's church and government committee has called on loyalist and republican paramilitary groups to "reassure fearful people and instil confidence by decommissioning their weapons".

This, it said, was "a fundamental moral and political imperative in its own right, especially at the present time, and should not be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations about other issues".

The committee also said it was imperative "that necessary pragmatism in the service of consolidating political accommodation be honoured" and that "political responsibility for the local governance of Northern Ireland by locally elected politicians should be consolidated".

In today's Irish Times, the Church of Ireland Primate, Dr Robin Eames, says a real change has come about at Drumcree "because it is slowly dawning that some form of engagement is the only way to move the problem forward". He believes "the attitudes [at Drumcree] we saw on all sides last Sunday augur well for progress".

He also says "the Church of Ireland has learned much about itself as it has struggled with the implications of Drumcree".