It is a filthy Sunday in early spring, replete with driving wind and lashing rain. As I stand outside Drumcree Parish Church, a squat stone edifice overlooking muddy fields on the edge of Portadown in Northern Ireland, I’m alone except for nine Orangemen, all dressed in dark coats and orange sashes.
It is a far cry from the last time I was here. That was in July 1998, when a new Parades Commission had just banned Portadown’s Orange Lodge from marching back to the town through a nationalist housing estate following its annual service commemorating Protestant King William’s 1690 victory over Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne.
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