Peadar Whelan looks back at the marching issue in 1997

IF BRITISH DIRECT RULER MARJORIE MOWLAM lived in Dublin she would I'm sure be familiar with the word slibhín - as bearla it means a sly person.

And after her disgraceful treatment of the people of the Garvaghy Road on 6 July, during round three of the Drumcree saga, the description of Mowlam as a slibhín fits.

When New Labour was elected and the touchy, feely Mowlam was sent over to the North as ``Northern Secretary'' her reputation as a listener, as someone who had shown concern for the plight of nationalist communities such as the Ormeau Road and Garvaghy Road in particular, went before her.

Hadn't she met representatives of these groups when in opposition?

Then in the aftermath of New Labour's massive electoral victory, in the run up to Drumcree 3, Mowlam undertook a series of whirlwind visits to Derry where she met Apprentice Boys and the Bogside Residents, to Dunloy and Bellaghy, then to the Ormeau Road where in a media-friendly meet-the-people exercise she shook hands, kissed babies and hugged whoever was huggable.

All through this honeymoon period Mowlam's body language hinted that any solution to the marching crisis would favour those beleagured nationalist communities through which the Orange Order demanded the ``right'' to march.

Then the test came in July. As the Drumcree march loomed and the Orangemen from Portadown refused to talk or negotiate with the Garvaghy Road residents, all eyes turned to Stormont.

Mowlam told the residents that whatever decision was made about the 6 July parade it would be communicated to them before the march.

However, as a massive military force descended on the small nationalist enclave on Friday 4 July there was still no information from Stormont and the Garvaghy residents were still in the dark.

Five different British army regiments, including paratroopers, were drafted into the area and threw up a ring of steel. Residents going about their business were stopped at every access road into Garvaghy Road.

Right through Saturday the air of expectancy on Garvaghy Road hung like a dark cloud; an expectancy deriving from Mowlam's promise that she would contact Garvaghy Road residents' spokesperson Breandain MacCionnaith to inform him of her decision.

That call never came. Then as we moved from Saturday into Sunday British army engineers built a barrier on the Drumcree Road where in previous years they built the barrier and blocked the Orangemen.

The trap was baited, residents believed Mowlam had delivered. She had, in fact, delivered a hopeful, trusting community to Orangemen whose refusal to treat Garvaghy residents with any respect was again rewarded.

Thousands of crown forces beat residents off their streets in a rerun of 1996. The Orangemen walked triumpantly and nationalist anger was unleashed. In the following days of rioting thousands of plastic bullets were fired and countless nationalists injured as a gleeful RUC again took an opportunity to vent their secatarianism.

However, what the events surrounding Garvaghy Three also unleashed was a nationalist anger that brought thousands on to the streets of Belfast and Derry and elsewhere.

British policy and Unionist tactics were in dissaray in the face of this nationalist anger and the clear message, as we moved into the Twelfth, was that if the British government wanted to force Orange marches through the Ormeau Road, Derry, Newry, Bellaghy, Newtownbutler and other nationalist areas then it was over the bodies of nationalists.

That expression of anger and the refusal to be intimidated has left the British and Unionists eyeball to eyeball with nationalists and the events in Derry last weekend show that the stand-off has the potential for chaos. Where it leads to next summer is anybody's guess but the British and Unionists now know in a way they never knew before that the price of Orange triumhpalism is high. How high will be answered next year.