It might never quite be Paris or Prague, but on long summer evenings with its trendy pubs and bistros, downtown Belfast is usually buzzing. Last night was very different.
The streets were deserted, the bars and restaurants empty. Even the normally irrepressible young stayed at home. Belfast was a ghost town. Some high street stores had shut early to ensure their workers made it home safely.
Those that stayed open did virtually no business. "Who would be in the mood for buying?" said a cashier in Marks and Spencers.
A sales assistant in a bookstore wondered how she would get home. "They were rioting up our way last night. It's nerve-wracking." She headed nervously out the door, whispering "wish me luck" to a colleague.
In east Belfast, Jean Rodgers was angry. "Road blocks, hijackings, petrol bombs, attacks on the security forces, I can't believe it," she said. "I thought those days were long gone."
A neighbour, Shirley-Ann Williams, agreed. "I'm ashamed to call myself a loyalist," she said. "For Protestants to be doing this to Protestants is dreadful. They're as bad as the IRA. It's not the people on the Falls suffering. They are destroying their own areas."
However, George Kennedy said normal behaviour could not apply as "Ulster was facing her gravest crisis ever".
"We must keep the flag flying at Drumcree," he said. "If it falls there, it falls everywhere." He believed loyalists should close the ports and airports if necessary.
"This is an all-out war. If people have holidays booked in Majorca or wherever, it doesn't matter. Would they rather go off for a few weeks in the sun and come home and find their wee province no longer existed?"
Some young loyalists seemed to be enjoying the stand-off. "I was up at Drumcree on Sunday night," said John Adams, "and it was great. This whole thing has brought the Protestant community together. Nationalists have always been good at uniting and now we have something to rally around."
In nationalist west Belfast, there was anger and fear. "My kids aren't allowed to cross the door," said Lorraine Murphy. "It's the start of their summer holidays and they should be allowed out but it's too dangerous.
"Most of the trouble has been in loyalist areas but it won't be long before the Orangies turn on us. It's always innocent Catholics who suffer in the end."
Normally during the World Cup the bars in west Belfast are busy, but last night, most people watched the Holland-Brazil semi-final at home.
Kevin Donnelly was furious about the security situation. "The RUC and the British army are allowing the loyalists to run riot," he said. "They treat them with kid gloves compared to the way they treat us.
"They would never let us block roads like that. If we had caused the trouble they have caused someone would be dead from a plastic bullet by now."
In Bangor, north Down, Jack Wilson thought the security forces should be more severe with the "thuggish elements". Life, however, went on fairly normally along Northern Ireland's gold coast.
In the coffee shops and hairdressing salons, women discussed their holiday plans. Drumcree seemed many miles away, but not all middle-class Protestants were unconcerned.
Nestled in the drumlins of Glenanne, south Armagh, lies John Lund's mill, which produces furnishing fabric. Mr Lund, a Yorkshireman who moved to Northern Ireland 15 years ago, expressed deep concern about loyalist violence.
"Respect for the law and freedom of movement are essential," he said. "If my staff can't get to work, if I can't go to the bank, if we can't get cloth to the docks, my business is in trouble."
Mr Lund voted No in the referendum. "I was very worried about prisoners and changes to the RUC" but he has no time for "people holding this province to ransom".
He believes the Orange Order has some "very fine ideals" but "suffers from the same hooligan problem as British soccer".
Reading through yesterday's British quality newspapers, he expressed pleasure that Northern Ireland did not make most front pages.
"The less publicity the better. These hooligans think they are the centre of the universe. They have to learn that nobody is interested in them."
Back in Belfast, however, another businessman was fully behind the Orange Order and argued that the damage caused to trade by the disturbances had been greatly exaggerated.
"I'm not sectarian but the Orangemen are totally justified in their stance," said Charlie Tosh, who runs a fireplace business in York Street. "People who say this protest will cost us all these jobs and tourists are talking nonsense. They are making excuses for their own failure to create jobs and attract tourists.
"Trade has been a wee bit quiet today but it will pick up. There is only so much money around. If I lose a few weeks now, I'll make up for it when the trouble is over."