It was a far from glorious Twelfth. As the 250 Orange lodges and their bands marched through Belfast, the heavens opened and the rain poured down.
"Them f--king Fenians must have been praying all night," complained a woman sheltering in a doorway with her twins.
"Don't worry," said a man running a fast food stall. "It's blue skies over Drumcree." That was, of course, a wildly optimistic statement. But the man was in great form. His business was doing a roaring trade as the drenched masses queued up for chips and burgers. There wasn't an ice-cream van in sight.
The Orangemen looked bedraggled in their Sunday suits and sashes, soaking from the showers. Women accordion players shivered in their sodden short skirts. "Get 'em off! Get 'em off! Get 'em off!" chorused a group of young men on the Lisburn Road. Only the drunks didn't mind the weather.
Three men with loyalist tattoos pranced around Shaftesbury Square in Union Jack shorts and T-shirts. At King Billy's Park one young loyalist had passed out from drink. His friends thoughtfully laid him under a tree.
Despite the order's commitment to temperance, alcohol was everywhere. A huge chunk of the crowd was drinking even though it was only 11 a.m. As usual, the men opted for cider or beer. The women clutched plastic cups of cheap wine or vodka and coke. Attendance at the march was notably down. The weather and the murder of the three children in Ballymoney inevitably played a part, but the numbers have been diminishing every year anyway as Belfast's Catholic population grows.
The roads were once lined with crowds 10-deep. But yesterday, the spectators seemed thinly spread. It was a family day out for many. People shouted to marchers they knew. Youngsters waved plastic Union Jacks and squealed with pleasure at the blood-and-thunder bands.
Some wore red, white and blue wigs. Others had their faces and hair sprayed in those colours. "Born to walk the Garvaghy Road" was emblazoned on one baby's bib. "Teach them young!" quipped his mother.
But there was a paramilitary element to proceedings too. Scores of UVF flags were waved along the way. Men sang UVF and UDA songs. A stall on the Dublin Road sold pictures of masked loyalist gunmen and tapes glorifying their deeds.
One T-shirt for sale, however, showed a spark of creativity. "Reservoir Prods" said the slogan above a group of cool-looking Orangemen in sunglasses and sashes. They were Mr Orange, Mr Boyne, Mr Union and Mr Flute.
It took almost four hours for the parade to arrive at "the Field" in Edenderry, six miles outside the city. Fewer than 100 people made their way down to the podium to listen to the Orange dignitaries.
Most of the crowd sprawled out on the grass. Young Orangemen sat on their drums or played their flutes. They paid no attention to the hymns, prayers or readings from the Bible.
From the platform, the former Grand Master and anti-Agreement Ulster Unionist MP, the Rev Martin Smyth, urged Orangemen to uphold Christian standards in a changing world.
There were references to the wiles of Satan, the Second Coming of Christ, and of loyalists being led towards the Agreement "like lambs to the slaughter".
The former British Prime Minister Mr Ted Heath, Proportional Representation, and the media were all blamed for Orange woes.
Mr Smyth compared the current situation in the North to that in Nazi Germany. By blindly obeying the State, the Protestant churches had allowed Hitler to tighten his grip.
There came a time, he said, when even those who wanted a quiet life had to take a stand against the forces of evil. And with that grave warning, the Orange brethren left the Field and marched home in the rain.