The spirit of reconciliation between the two communities in the North was nowhere to be seen in Crumlin, Co Antrim, on Saturday night, as another standoff developed over a loyalist parade banned by the Parades Commission.
Last Monday, the commission ruled against Crumlin Young Loyalists Flute Band holding a band contest in the mainly nationalist village. On Saturday morning, they secretly entered the Orange hall in the centre of the village. In the early afternoon they came out and began to play loyalist tunes, cheered on by a sizeable group of supporters who had slipped through the security cordon surrounding Crumlin.
Every half-hour the band marched around the small grounds of the hall, until local residents, who had strongly objected to the band's presence, began to gather on the main street.
A standoff ensued, with dozens of RUC officers separating the two groups shortly after 8 p.m. One Crumlin resident was arrested and another removed from the scene when police attempted to move the objectors.
An hour later, negotiations were under way, with local politicians helping to defuse the tension while trying to find an acceptable compromise. This was never going to be a simple task, as the RUC was legally required to prevent the parade. After a further scuffle between residents and the police, it became clear that negotiations would fail. The band said it wanted to lay a wreath in memory of the Omagh bomb victims at the village war memorial; the residents said that no such gesture was forthcoming when student Ciaran Heffron was murdered in Crumlin in April. Other suggestions were also rejected, and the band played on.
Just as it appeared that a siege would ensue, the band left the hall, shortly after 11 p.m., without having held its traditional parade through the village centre. Both sides lay claim to victory and the moral high ground.
Sinn Fein representative for the area, Mr Martin Meehan, said the people of Crumlin had been humiliated by what had happened.
"The Parades Commission's ruling has been flouted in a very provocative and insensitive way. The RUC have not upheld the commission's decision. They've let hundreds of loyalists through the road check to congregate at the Orange hall, where they have played provocative music and antagonised the residents of Crumlin," he said. A Crumlin Young Loyalists' spokesman, Mr Mark Harbinson, said they had gained a victory over the Parades Commission. He claimed the body had ignored the fact that the parade had been postponed from late June in the wake of Ciaran Heffron's murder.
"The police said they would not let the Crumlin band into the village. We have proved them wrong and made it to our own Orange hall, quietly and with dignity. We have drawn a line in the sand and unfortunately the RUC are preventing us not just walking through our village , which we have done for the last 18 years, but laying a poppy wreath in memory of the atrocity in Omagh. The loyalists of Crumlin are asking `where is our parity of esteem'? " he said.