In the end it was a squalid little affair. History came and went leaving flotsam in its wake. As it receded, in the dying hours of July 13th, "the settling day", the Rev Ian Paisley made one last desperate attempt.
Standing at the front door of the parish hall in Drumcree as midnight approached on Monday, he threw half-truths at an eager following. The killings in Ballymoney were not sectarian. He knew that. It was in his constituency. And they had nothing to do with Drumcree. Nor had David Trimble or Seamus Mallon gone to see the Quinn family as he had done. (Mr Trimble visited the Quinns that very evening). Mr Trimble "can't even go into parts of Portadown, ha ha ha, and as long as he keeps trailing the coat-tails of Seamus Mallon he'll not have very much support anywhere in our country".
And the RUC. "There's something happening to the police force today." How was it that every time a Catholic was murdered it was sectarian, whereas when the victim was Protestant that was never said? But just let people wait as the saga in Ballymoney unfolds. "There's a lot of dancing on those young fellows' graves for their own advantage." Drumcree would continue as it had before. It was "too serious to be picked off by any happening in our country . . . Is this country going to be ruled by Dublin? Is it going to see the Protestant people wiped out, as they had been in the South?"
And the press. Why was it so "bitter and arrogant to Protestants and gentle and kind to Catholics?" He reminded the BBC who paid the licence fee. Hardly one licence fee was paid in west Belfast. He called on Orangemen in the Ulster Unionist Party at the Assembly to unite. If they voted together they could block all legislation. Just 56 per cent of the vote was all they needed. "I say now to David Trimble and to those Orangemen in the ranks of the Unionist party, you have to make a choice." And he led them all in O God Our Help in Ages Past . . ."
But it was too late. History had passed him by too, leaving him there on top of the hill at Drumcree, full of wrath and fury, fulminating at the wind.
Earlier that day his DUP colleague and fellow Free Presbyterian, Joel Patton, had gone to fight for Ulster at Pomeroy. With an umbrella and his index finger, which he pointed at the enemy, the Rev William Bingham, a young clergyman then at prayer. Hardly the stuff of myth.
The following day Mr Patton maintained a more discreet presence at the Royal Black Perceptory gathering in Scarva. He was clearly out of his milieu there, among a better class of Orangeman, whose concern is more with God than "Ulster". And he was going on holiday the following day and so probably didn't want to get drawn into something which could stretch beyond that. "Ulster" must wait. At Scarva he stood beside a Spirit of Drumcree stand. It sold leaflets and books with titles such as The Day Rome Burned a Baby, Murder in the Vatican, Maria Monk - Awful Disclosures of Convent Life. It offered to get other titles for the interested. These included The Borgia Pope, Horrible Lives of the Popes, and Convent Horror. Trade was poor.
At Drumcree itself it was similar. That night the crowd was small. It was also ugly. Approaching midnight youths with scarves across their faces flowed through the crowd to the barrier, carrying bottles full of petrol. They threw these up and over at the RUC, and flowed back through the crowd again to get more for the next barrage. Not one person made an effort to stop them. Not one of the Portadown District Orange Lodge Marshals was anywhere to be seen.
Plastic bullets were fired as another shower of petrol-bombs went over. One youth was hit on the foot. He fell. An outraged crowd gathered round him. A Portadown District Marshal appeared from nowhere and, with another man, linked the casualty to the first-aid centre at the parish hall. As the injured youth was helped up the hill the crowd on either side burst into applause.
And the following night men such as he exploded 10 blast bombs at the barrier. It was enough. The RUC moved in, arrested six, began a search of the field opposite the church and found an arsenal that indicated murderous intent. A sub-machinegun was bad enough, but two crossbows with explosive tipped darts containing a ball-bearing each, indicated a degree of savagery that surprised even the least well disposed. Another 13 were arrested.
At 9.30 a.m. on Thursday as the police were searching the field and Orangemen came and went from the parish hall (despite a Church of Ireland statement saying it had been vacated at 6 a.m., it continued to be used by the Orangemen throughout the day), a small group of Orangemen stopped myself and a colleague demanding identification. They told us to clear off. We told them we were walking on the Queen's highway. They reminded us we were "Free State bastards" and that we had massacred Protestants.
It would be wrong to think those who took part in the debacle during the latter days of the stand-off were typical of the Orangemen who had paraded there. Nor would it be correct to say the murder of the Quinn children destroyed the protest. It helped, but the crowds had begun to drop long before that. There were about 7,000 there last Thursday week, when Antrim lodges visited. It was one of the first nights of bad violence. Numbers were down the following night, and the RUC videotaped a man firing a rifle at police. The scene was practically deserted last Saturday night. Then the Quinn children were burned to death.
The UUP's Jeffrey Donaldson disappeared. So too did his party colleague, Willie Ross. It was left to the Rev Paisley and his DUP colleagues, Willie McCrea, Paul Berry and Peter and Iris Robinson, to hold the fort. They did so alongside increasing numbers of shadowy figures.
But Donaldson and Ross had picked up on a new mood. One thing had become clear. Ordinary decent Orangemen and their families wanted nothing to do with violence and lawlessness, however they felt about Drumcree.