Last month, more than 10 journalists from the Republic and Britain were invited on a three-day press trip to one of the most famous places in Northern Ireland. Reporters were to be taken to tourist spots and shown around local firms in a bid to promote the area as a thriving place to live and do business. The trip was to Craigavon, the borough that is home to Portadown.
It was with mixed feelings that The Irish Times - the only publication to take up the offer - arrived at the Seagoe Hotel in Portadown. For most of that time the Seagoe has been a base for the world's media during the contentious period in July. Business people, tourists and wedding guests pack it out for the rest of the year.
Despite the severely curtailed media presence, Craigavon Borough Council was still keen to prove that there was more to the area than the riots, standoffs and sporadic violence that erupts around the Drumcree period.
The council's press officer, Pauline Nixon-Black, explained why her employers were becoming more proactive in trying to change the image of the borough.
"We are being realis tic. We can either sit back and do nothing or we can try to change the way people view the area," she said.
She accepted that some people might view the widespread publicity campaign, which incorporates glossy brochures and "Craigavon: The Future is Here" posters on billboards across Northern Ireland, as a lost cause. It was hard not to agree with that assessment.
For most people, Craigavon means Portadown, which in turn means the Drumcree standoff where each year Orangemen try to march down the mainly Catholic Garvaghy Road and the results are witnessed by television viewers all over the world.
Why would anyone want to do business, never mind take a holiday in an area that has achieved international fame for all the wrong reasons? Over the next three days, they tried to explain.
DAY 1
5.30 p.m., June 20th: Arrived at the Seagoe Hotel. It felt strange. Last July, as usual, the place was packed with camera people and reporters, one of whom was nursing a nasty bump on the head after getting caught in a riot in the centre of town.
8.30 p.m. Dinner in Avanti, the restaurant in the Seagoe Hotel. Diane Huniford, town executive of Portadown, the woman responsible for the day-to-day running and future planning of the town assessed how the trouble at Drumcree affects trading in the area.
"Of course it affects us, absolutely, 1998 was the worst year and since then we have lost out. We were facing very serious competition anyway, with the developments in Newry and locally with the Rushmere Shopping Centre in Craigavon itself. We didn't need the baggage of Drumcree, without it we would have been able to face the competition head on," she said.
Some of the bigger retail names have chosen to go elsewhere over the years, ("they use Drumcree as an excuse not to invest", said Huniford) but there are still 300 traders in the town. Since Drumcree began, only three have closed down while many more have opened.
"There are constant efforts to talk to people, but the fact is that those involved couldn't care less about the economic impact," she sighed. "At the moment we feel vulnerable and terribly aggrieved that the spotlight is on us because of something that is not the fault of Portadown itself. You can't move a mountain but you can move around it. The fact is we manage the situation, but it must end, it is not doing anybody any good".
DAY 2
9 a.m., June 21st: First stop on a morning of meetings with the movers and shakers of the Craigavon business world was the Mayfair Business Centre on the Garvaghy Road in Portadown where tricolours fluttered gently from lamp-posts. A call centre, Answer Call Direct, has recently located here.
Showing us around, managing director Kelsey Buck, a local woman, explained how she relayed news of the company's move from a Portadown industrial estate to the most famous road in Northern Ireland to her 100 plus staff.
"I told them the doors were locked so they couldn't all run away before they heard what I said . . . it has turned out well and I really think Drumcree will be okay. We have people from both sides here and it hasn't been a problem. The nature of our business means we have to be open 24 hours, 365 days no matter what," she said.
Clients include BT and, interestingly, a number of US religious institutions. As a result, the centre, which is a short walk from Drumcree Church, takes regular calls from people looking for a prayer.
10 a.m. At the Civic Centre in Craigavon, the council's chief executive, Trevor Reaney, and the then Mayor Fred Crowe provided an overview of the area. Spanning 100 square miles of countryside, Craigavon was a new city built in the 1960s between Lurgan and Portadown - the borough of Craigavon incorporates all three towns. In total, the area has 80,000 residents and the average house price is £79,000 sterling (€132,000) compared to around £100,000 in Belfast.
Mr Reaney and Mr Crowe are at pains to point out that Craigavon is the second-largest manufacturing base outside greater Belfast and is third in line for regional development after Belfast and Derry. The place has four golf clubs, three leisure centres, water sports and horse riding facilities. Funding for an all-Ireland equestrian centre has also been secured.
11.30 a.m. Ulster Carpet Mills stands at the bottom of the Garvaghy Road, close to where an army checkpoint is erected each July. The company is the second-largest producer of Axminster carpet in the world and some of the carpets in the Big Brother house were also made there.
Managing director Mike Mills described the violent element that sparks the town's annual troubles as "a bunch of people who claim to be patriots but who are actually just bigots" and said they pose a constant threat to industry in the Portadown.
12 p.m. Last year, the turnover of pharmaceutical company Galen Holdings was £86 million sterling and the company, which employs 800 in Portadown and 800 more worldwide, is expanding all the time.
"We wouldn't be investing in the Portadown plant if we couldn't make money here," said business and corporate information manager Eleanor Lee.
1 p.m. Lunch in Bennett's pub, just off the High Street in Portadown. This pub wouldn't look out of place in Dublin with its chocolate-brown fittings, comfortable sofas and trendy clientele. Owner Tony Bennett has lived in the town all his life and said the majority of his punters, "don't want anything to do with politics or the trouble at Drumcree". He expects to close for a week around Drumcree simply because there would be no business. Incidentally, the lunch - Italian-style hamburger - was delicious.
3 p.m. A short drive through gorgeous countryside and we are at the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre on the shores of the largest fresh water lake in the British Isles. This centre, on Oxford Island, welcomes 200,000 visitors each year drawn here by the stunning scenery and wildlife. It is a bird-watchers' paradise. Head of conservation Jim Bradley said Drumcree doesn't affect the success of the centre too much but is "something which needs to be overcome".
4 p.m. We take a boat across Lough Neagh to Coney Island, a National Trust property with one inhabitant, the friendly island caretaker. The tree-covered haven is about as far away from Drumcree Hill as one can get and still be in the borough of Craigavon. 6 p.m. Dinner at the Seagoe. The restaurant and bar are both busy.
Day 3
9.30 a.m. Ballydougan Pottery is three miles from Lurgan at Bloomvale House. Based in a renovated Huguenot cottage, Sean O'Dowd's place is one of just 63 thatched properties in Northern Ireland. Taking a break from turning bowls to show us around, he said that 85 per cent of his product is exported to the Republic, much of it sold in shops such as the Kilkenny Design Centre in Dublin.
When he is in the Republic on business, people say "Oh dear" when they hear how close he is to Portadown. "I get these sympathetic looks. But I say, `well at any time of the year my customers can come here, park and leave their keys in the car. Can yours do that?' "
11 a.m. Based in a lovely old house in Church Street, Portadown, Wm Gallery supplies software to engineering firms. Just around the corner is Carleton Street Orange Hall.
Software developer David McVeigh is from Belfast and said he gets "a bit of stick" from his mates because he works in Portadown. "But I have never seen any trouble. Until recently I didn't even know where the Garvaghy Road was," he said.
1.30 p.m. The final date on this whistle-stop tour of Craigavon was lunch at the Silverwood Hotel and Golf Course near Lurgan. Owner Sean Hughes is a local but has spent much of his working life in Dublin where he owns a pub. The Drumcree issue didn't deter him from buying the hotel five years ago. "What I know about Drumcree I see on the television, that's how far removed we are from what goes on," he said. "Having said that, it does impact on the business, but so does the strength of sterling at the moment."
Recently, 24 skiing enthusiasts (there is an artificial slope near the hotel) were due to stay at the Silverwood but when they heard the hotel was five miles from Drumcree only 18 showed up. "But the ones who came thoroughly enjoyed themselves," he said. "People have to come here and see things for themselves," he said.
For more information: Craigavon Borough Council 048 38 312 400; Seagoe Hotel 048 38 333 076; Silverwood Hotel 327722; www.ulstercarpets.com www.ballydouganpottery.co.uk oxford.island@craigav on.gov.uk
