Ballymena is a formidable town. The Rev Ian Paisley has his base there, and it might have been from there he took his humour. This shows in anti-agreement posters still on display. One with David Trimble has the quote: "The Union is safe" above his picture. The line beneath reads: "So was the Titanic."
And there is the menace, too. Scrawled among the witticisms is "All Taigs are targets."
Population 57,400 (1995 figures), Ballymena is 80 per cent Protestant. Its Catholics are generally middle-class, quiet and inured to overt bigotry by comparative wealth and some status.
Harryville, a suburb of the town, is between "96 and 99.9 per cent" Protestant, loyalist, working-class, according to locals.
Not quite the place to build a large Catholic church, especially one called after the Virgin Mary. It was built about 25 years ago on land left to the church in a will. It is a sitting duck. An obvious target - like "all Taigs".
Some 10 miles away is Dunloy, population 1,000. "We're 100 per cent nationalist," said a local woman. For decades, Orangemen marched there, via its Main Street. In September 1996, two months after Drumcree, Dunloy decided that would no longer happen and loyalists began to picket Our Lady's in Harryville.
"No Marching This Year Boys - Ha, Ha, Ha!" was painted on the Orange Hall in Dunloy. "F--The Pope" was painted over the entrance to Our Lady's. Such was the dialogue.
In Dunloy, they left matters to the RUC. In Harryville, hundreds of loyalists gathered outside Our Lady's every Saturday, taunting those attending Mass and barracking the large RUC contingents sent to guarantee freedom of worship.
"Watch yourself going into the confessional," shouted one loyalist at a Catholic mother and daughter entering the church one Saturday evening in September 1996. "Look out for Brendan Smith," said another in case the point was missed.
A Protestant man who tried to civilise these thugs was called a "Fenian-loving bastard". After the Mass, when an elderly priest, Father Seamus Clenaghan, tried to talk to the protesters, he was greeted: "Here's Father Ted." They fluttered a Union flag around his head and told him they would be back the following week with an even bigger crowd.
Attempts were made to burn Our Lady's, though just the front porch was damaged. A priest's car was set on fire. Another priest was ordered to leave the area under threat of death. The presbytery was robbed. The priests moved out and stopped talking to the media. "It's the silence of the scared," suggested a parishioner.
Reported among the protesters was Billy McCaughey. He had served 16 years for the murder of a Catholic pharmacist in the nearby village of Ahoghill in 1977. The pharmacist had been contacted to bring medicines to a sick child and when he arrived at the relevant house he was shot dead.
McCaughey was involved with the kidnapping of a Catholic priest in Ahoghill in 1978 and, while serving with the RUC, took part in a bomb attack on a Catholic-owned pub at Keady, Co Armagh. "I have no involvement in that sphere now," he said in February last year.
The protests continued with ever-decreasing numbers until last week.
Two weeks ago Orangemen agreed to accept a rerouteing of their march in Dunloy. It caused a crisis among the Harryville protesters. One local man said "between 60 and 70" of them met under the lone lime tree across from Our Lady's last Saturday. They aired their grievances about the Orangemen who had called off their protest.
Meanwhile, Union flags and Ulster flags adorn every pole in the vicinity of Our Lady's. "LVF" is painted on the trunk of the lime tree, while the kerbing around it is painted red, white and blue.
Our Lady's is locked up. Its stained-glass windows are behind grilles. The fencing all around is high and fiercely pointed. Gates are padlocked, and the remains of a flour-bomb cling to a wall. It looks desolate in its imprisoned isolation. A strange house of God.
Locals all refuse to be named and do not know the names of any who took part in any of the protests. All are very glad the protests are over, even if it just means an end to all the inconvenience.
Some speak with sympathy about the Catholics who had to endure so much. Some are indifferent, saying "You get used to anything".
A couple say they had to show their faces at the protests so they would be left alone. And one man smiled at the mention of Billy McCaughey.