MR Billy Wright is a very serious loyalist indeed. He is a former UVF prisoner and an influential loyalist in the mid Ulster area. He has said he would be proud to die for Northern Ireland.
He has been unequivocal in his support of the UVF. He does not accept that the mass sectarian killings of Catholics, and one Protestant, in Loughinisland, Co Down, and Greysteel, Co Derry, was murder. "That's just war," he told the Sunday Tribune last year.
Mr David Trimble, the Ulster Unionist Party leader, justified his meeting with Mr Wright and other leading loyalists at the height of the Drumcree standoff on the grounds that as a constitutional politician, and despite being opposed to paramilitarism, he was obliged to try and defuse a powder keg situation.
Nobody doubts that the situation on the day before last Thursday's volte-face by the RUC chief constable was explosive. What is questionable is whether Mr Trimble should have allowed himself to get into a situation where he felt compelled to talk to such people in such circumstances.
The Alliance Party leader, Dr John Alderdice, accused Mr Trimble and the Orange Order of "appalling hypocrisy" in speaking to Mr Wright, yet refusing to speak to the Garvaghy Residents Association and to its chief spokesman, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, because that spokesman had previous convictions for republican activity.
The SDLP accused Mr Trimble of having amazing double standards. The UK Unionist Party leader, Mr Robert McCartney, said Mr Trimble's encounter with Mr Wright and other loyalists on Wednesday night was "questionable". The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, said what Mr Trimble did was Mr Trimble's business. "Am I my brother's keeper?" he asked.
The senior Sinn Fein figure, Mr Martin McGuinness, has accepted Mr Trimble's right to talk with Mr Wright but queried how, in the light of that meeting, unionists could justify not talking to Sinn Fein representatives.
Apart from the volatility of the situation, Mr Trimble also justified his meeting on the grounds that the loyalist paramilitary ceasefire was still in place.
Therefore, the argument went, he was justified in speaking to Mr Wright and other loyalists. But as the IRA ceasefire had collapsed neither he nor the Orangemen could speak to the Garvaghy Residents Association because, as he alleged, it was being manipulated by "Sinn Fein/IRA" elements, an accusation which the Garvaghy residents body has denied.
The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, has asserted that without the involvement of paramilitaries on both sides he believed a compromise could have been reached.
But was Mr Trimble justified in saying he could legitimately speak to Mr Wright because the loyalist ceasefire still held? It's a moot point. To gain a better understanding one should re-examine the situation pertaining that week.
Some time late on Sunday week last, the day the standoff began or early the following morning Mr Michael McGoldrick, a Catholic taxi driver, was murdered near Lurgan. The UDA itself blamed maverick elements within the UVF in mid Ulster.
Subsequently both the UDA and the UVF denied involvement and said their ceasefires still held. That Monday evening Mr Billy Hutchinson, a leading spokesman for the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP), which reflects UVF thinking, said that if dissident UVF members were responsible he was sure the UVF would initiate an inquiry and take appropriate action.
The PUP could not bring itself to condemn the killing. Another spokesman, Mr David Ervine said the party did not engage in the "politics of condemnation", a line used by Mr Adams when asked to condemn IRA actions.
Therefore, despite these denials, there was certainly suspicion that loyalists were involved in Mr McGoldrick's murder.
As the week of Drumcree progressed so did the strains and tensions soar, manifested in sporadic trouble at Drumcree involving some Orangemen and their loyalist supporters, and more seriously in loyalist blockades, sectarian violence and intimidation elsewhere in the North.
The situation reached crisis point on Wednesday evening. An assault on the police line was expected.
Mr Trimble has staunchly defended his actions in meeting Mr Wright, and he has been generally defended by his colleagues within the UUP. The meeting helped defuse a potentially dangerous situation, and there was no real alternative, they argued.
But for 12 months there was a potential alternative.
The Chief Constable talked to Mr Mac Cionnaith in an effort to reach an accommodation. So at the very least, the question must be asked, should not the Orange Order and Mr Trimble have done likewise, if there was any chance of an agreement which would have allowed honour to rest with both sides?
The Garvaghy residents failed, despite a year of trying, to arrange an official meeting with the Orange Order. If Mr Trimble could meet Mr Wright in circumstances of a dubious loyalist paramilitary denial of involvement in McGoldrick's murder, it is reasonable to ask why he, or fellow Portadown Orangemen, would not officially engage with the Garvaghy Residents Association to head off an impasse that plunged Northern Ireland to the brink of anarchy.
An added difficulty with Mr Trimble's loyalist ceasefire argument is that, even when the IRA ceasefire was in place, he refused a request from the Garvaghy residents for a meeting.
If the Garvaghy Residents Association had no intention of reaching a compromise, at least Mr Trimble and the Orangemen would have called the association's bluff in the event of such a meeting and gained the high moral ground on the impasse.
Politicians of many persuasions now contend that Mr Trimble has lost credibility. Even a moderate politician such as Dr Alderdice believes that the UUP has been severely tainted by what happened at Drumcree, and that in the light of Mr Trimble's meeting with Mr Wright it is now up to the party to decide whether he should remain as leader.
That is unlikely to happen. What will happen is that other constitutional politicians, particularly in the SDLP, will be able to raise serious questions when Mr Trimble in future refuses to have any dialogue with Sinn Fein. The SDLP is unlikely to let this issue sit.
