Letter from Irun: The annual marching season ended in this Basque border town last week, leaving a long trail of bitter recrimination, a few minor physical injuries, and quite a lot of fear, anger and confusion, writes Paddy Woodworth.
You could be forgiven for thinking that, like most rows in this region, the underlying problem is related to national identity or terrorism. Not at all.
Rather incredibly, in the week that the Spanish parliament legalised homosexual marriage, the bother in Irun was all about the participation of women in the town's fiestas.
This issue divides families, and friends. It puts people who otherwise share the same political views on the opposite side of a line of riot police, some hurling words and phrases like "lesbian", "queer" and "bearded lady" as prelude to throwing bottles and punches.
It wasn't always like this. I first encountered the fiestas of San Marcial in the tense summer of 1976, when Spain was still a dictatorship and democracy was a word you whispered in back rooms. But Irun's fiestas of San Marcial integrated tens of thousands of citizens of all political persuasions in a joyous and beautifully choreographed celebration. The occasion recalls a victory of local militias over French forces in 1522.
An alarde, or military procession of about 8,000 people, traditionally almost all men, forms the core of the Irun's fiestas. Nineteen "companies", based in different barrios of the town, assemble in the early morning in the Plaza de Urbanibia. They spend most of the day marching through the streets or lining up for inspection by a "general".
There is a country walk (romería) and a Mass at lunchtime in honour of San Marcial. And of course, this being the Basque country, every family brings a picnic basket of gastronomic delights to complete the midday celebrations.
The whole of Irun seems to turn red and white for the day, because the foot-soldiers dress in those colours, as do the spectators. It is an occasion for a great display of elegance among the latter, with red berets being obligatory, while women wear anything from slinky red camisoles to starched white shirts. The "general" and his cavalry wear splendid and elaborate archaic dress uniforms, as do the corps of engineers and the artillery unit.
You need to be careful not to stand too close to the canons - even firing blanks they can do some nasty damage to your nerves, if not your eardrums.
Bear in mind, too, that every foot soldier carries some kind of shotgun, from which blanks are fired with increasing indiscipline as the day, and the drinking that goes with it, proceeds.
Despite the superficially bellicose atmosphere however this has always been the happiest of days. Try imagining the Twelfth of July with good weather, good wine, superb victuals - and a total absence of sectarian intent.
That, at least, was the case until 10 years ago, when a group of about 50 women, in full military regalia, attempted to attach themselves to one of the companies. Hitherto, the only role played by women had been as cantineras, a sort of cheerleader for each company, with selection organised along the lines of a beauty contest.
The reaction to the women's irruption into the scene was extraordinary - and very frightening. They were beaten, their clothes were torn, they were spat upon and received the most vile verbal abuse.
"You deserve to be raped," one woman I spoke to remembers hearing. What shocked her was that her abuser, who knew her personally, was young, left-wing, and a conscientious objector.
The movement for female participation snowballed, accompanied by a raft of equality legislation in the Basque parliament that has left the city council caught between the law, and the strong desire of most voters in Irun to keep the alarde "traditional".
The crisis has reached the point where there are now two full-scale alardes, a logistical nightmare.
Though the "mixed" procession is only about 1,500 strong, they put on a very professional show. But when the "mixed" procession reached the town hall last Thursday, the mayor and all but one other councillor left the reception committee on the balcony.
In many parts of the town, however, the integrated procession was very well received. But when they returned to the town hall they had to be protected from physical and verbal attacks by riot police. This is one Basque conflict which looks like taking a very long time to resolve.