The music of accordion bands playing loyalist tunes was exchanged for Christmas carols last night as Orangemen and their supporters gathered at Drumcree Church near Portadown.
The scene contrasted markedly with last Saturday, when several thousand people marched to Drumcree in a show of support for the Portadown Orange protest, now in its 174th day.
The atmosphere was more subdued, almost respectful. It was as if the message of Christmas had eased slightly the antagonism of the past six months. Last night, it was those who had maintained a constant presence at Drumcree Hill since July 5th who assembled for an open carol service.
Despite the pressures of late night Christmas shopping and outstanding domestic chores, families stood together on a cold December evening less than half a mile away from the disputed Garvaghy Road at what was advertised locally as the "Drumcree carol service". A resplendent Christmas tree stood guard for the Orangemen at the church gates. Tinsel decorations and gaudy fairy lights adorned the tea stall, now renamed the Hillside Cafe. Orange bows brightened the drab telegraph poles and hedgerows leading down to where the RUC stood silently in the darkness. Here the message of "peace on earth, good will towards men" ended abruptly.
As the music of the carols drifted across the fields that make up the no man's land between Drumcree Church and Garvaghy Road, there was no sign of reconciliation between the two communities.
There was no sudden climbing out of the trenches to meet the enemy in a Christmas 1998 truce. No end to the intolerance of both communities that has scarred this town for so long. Portadown has its own ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. All three spectres embody the same face - Drumcree.
As the carol service concluded, people drifted back to their cars and then home. The Portadown Orangemen, however, remained. As the people left, the hope of the Christmas message evaporated into the night air along with the fading music. A cold sadness returned in its place.
Here in the heart of the Nobel peace laureate's own constituency the sectarian gulf that is the problem of Portadown remains as intractable as ever.