NATIONALISTS say it is a spontaneous and sporadic protest against the excesses of the Orange marching season. Unionists say it is a carefully planned and orchestrated campaign by republicans, aimed at driving Protestant businesses out of areas in which they are already in decline.

As with many things in Northern Ireland, there are two versions of the business boycotts which have followed in the wake of Drumcree. But both sides are in agreement about one thing - the capacity of the tactic to hurt.

Mr Cedric Wilson, a member of Robert McCartney's UK Unionists who helped found the non-party Business and Professional People for the Union, says the group has been inundated in recent days with calls from Protestants who are in trouble because of the withdrawal of Catholic custom.

He claims the boycotts are happening all along the Border and in some cases further "inland"

from Castlederg, Co Tyrone, down to Irvinestown in Fermanagh, through the mid-Border towns of Lisnaskea, Fivemiletown, Augher and Pomeroy, in Bessbrook, Co Armagh, and into south Co Down, in places like Castlewellan.

The targets are not exclusively Orangemen, he adds. "The discrimination is happening in very broad brushstrokes against Protestant businesses. I'm told it compounds the problem if you're an Orangeman or you happen to have been at Drumcree, but that's only an incidental factor."

The group is reluctant to identify particular cases, but cites one businessman from "west of the Bann", who has lost 70 per cent of his livelihood because a number of large accounts were withdrawn. It is compiling a dossier of businesses affected and hopes to publish details next week.

Nobody is publicly claiming responsibility for the campaign and there are no public posters or graffiti urging boycotts. But the chairman of the business group, Mr Alan Field, blames Sinn Fein and says he knows of one case where members of the party have "blatantly" stood outside a Protestant business, monitoring the customers going in and out.

Sinn Fein, for its part, accuses the unionists of exaggerating the extent of the problem and insists it isn't involved. "We would never advocate boycotts against people on the basis of their religion," a spokesman in Derry says. "But the unionists blame us for everything anyway. It's like the Americans when they had reds under the bed. They have republicans under the bed here."

If the party wanted to organise a boycott, he adds, the best place to start would be Derry, where he claims most city-centre businesses are still in Protestant hands but hugely dependent on Catholic custom. "I don't see any boycotting in Derry," he says.

Castlederg in Co Tyrone is not necessarily the worst case, according to the pro-union group, although it has attracted most of the media attention.

But it is the epitome of the Protestants' dilemma. Protestants still "own" the centre of the village which is quintessentially unionist. A fresh sign saying "Castlederg says no" greets visitors on the Omagh side of the town, and the Union Jack flies on several flagpoles.

THERE is no sign of a nationalist community, except in the names on several of the pubs and in a couple of Tyrone GAA flags on premises near the "top of the town", where a substantial housing estate with the Tricolour flying, republican murals and anti RUC graffiti is hidden away. This is the community which is now flexing its economic muscle.

A unionist councillor in Castlederg, Mr Derek Hussey, says that things have improved "microscopically" from the first weeks of the boycotts, which he claims cost local grocers and other businessmen up to 40 per cent of their custom.

"It's ever so slightly better than it was, but it's still serious. The message has got through and there is now a general coldness towards Protestant businesses in Castlederg."

He has no doubt it is planned. "The speed with which events have happened would lead any logical person to think there was a high degree of orchestration. To me it's just another change of tactic by republicans, to an economic as opposed to a militaristic campaign."

The business people themselves are saying nothing, at least publicly. Grocers in Castlederg politely declined to comment this week and Mr Roy Kells, a senior Orangeman who has drapery shops in Enniskillen, Irvinestown and Lisnaskea and who has previously, spoken, about the protest, said it was his policy not to discuss the matter with the press. Mr Kells's businesses are understood to have been targeted for his alleged role in Orange protests during the Drumcree standoff.

A Fermanagh unionist councillor, Mr Albert Liddle, echoed the general refrain when he said: "The less said the better. The less publicity this whole thing gets now the better chance it'll just fade away.

"People are very frightened to talk," says Mr Alan Field. "If you re seen to be speaking up against it, you may qualify for special attention. And if there were to be a resumption of violence in the province, these people are terrified they'll be in the firing line."

Mr Cedric Wilson fears the chances of the boycotts just fading away are slim. "The view of the business people we've spoken to is that this thing is very deep-rooted. And once someone has been boycotting a place for a couple of weeks, it becomes very hard to go back."

Nationalist representatives in Border areas deny unionist claims of an organised campaign but express some sympathy with Catholic customers who are, staying away in revenge for Drumcree and other excesses of the marching season.

"People were mad here," says Mr Fergus McQuillan, an SDLP councillor and publican in Newtownbutler, Co Fermanagh. "If you were going into Enniskillen at the time of Drumcree, you had to check with the RUC what route you should take. I had to divert three times myself.

"And then afterwards you'd find it was maybe only a couple of lads at a road block, who could easily have been moved. So there was a feeling of being tricked, too."

NATIONALISTS point out that the boycott tactic was first used by unionists, when they stayed away from Catholic-owned businesses in Roslea, Co Fermanagh, after a Royal Black Institution parade was rerouted last year.

But Mr Alan Field argues that the tactic has a longer history in Border areas. "What's happening now is a throwback to what happened after partition, when Protestant business which ended up on the wrong side of the Border, as it were, were systematically boycotted and driven out. That's on record. It's not a myth.

Meanwhile, the last spasms of the marching season have yet, to pass, with the next crisis coming in the form of the Royal Black's parades on the last Saturday in August.

A voluntary rerouting by the Blackmen in Pomeroy appears not to have assuaged local nationalist opinion, while Castlederg is bracing itself for what Mr Hussey says will be a parade around the full route of the town.

This is unlikely to help the cause of those who hope the bitterness and the boycotts will just fade away, he admits. "It will probably work to the advantage of certain people, yes.