The statement yesterday from the Grand Master of the Orange Order that "we will have to talk to them" is the most important signal yet that the organisation is prepared to seek a compromise over the enduring crisis of Drumcree.
Mr Robert Saulters will face strong opposition from militants in his organisation, led by the Spirit of Drumcree ginger group, but in recent years the Orange leadership has shown itself capable of taking on internal opposition over marching.
The march along Garvaghy Road is a core issue in Orangeism.
Traditionalists and militants both state that the Drumcree march to Portadown has been a central feature of the North's marching season.
The march dates from 1807 and was marred even then by faction fighting with the Catholic inhabitants of a row of cabins on the return route to the town centre.
In the recent Troubles, Orangemen marching through the Catholic enclave of Garvaghy Road and "the Tunnel" has become a central cause of strife.
It arose in the mid-1980s when the then RUC Chief Constable, Sir John Hermon, blocked the Orangemen from crossing the narrow Obins Street, also known as "the Tunnel", on their way to the service.
For three years there was loyalist rioting at the street's entrance and the town's Catholic enclave was subjected to three annual sieges.
Sir John's compromise plan for the Orangemen, that they take a slightly more circuitous route to the church along the mainly Protestant Corcrain Road and return via Garvaghy Road was accepted with some sense of relief at the time.
But continuing loyalist assaults on Portadown's Catholic community and the emergence of a determined anti-march element in the form of the Garvaghy Residents' Coalition brought the issue to a head again in 1995.
The Orange parade was forced through in 1996 after a week-long blockade of Northern Ireland by the loyalists. Again last year the Catholic estate was besieged by a huge RUC force to allow the march through.
This year, as the British government decided to stand against the Orangemen, loyalists embarked on a week of rioting and nightly terror in which some 141 Catholic and 50 RUC families were fire-bombed or otherwise forced from their homes.
The violence culminated in the deaths of Catholic children when the Quinns, Jason (7), Mark (9) and Richard (10), died when a loyalist fire-bomb turned their home into an inferno.
The deaths appear to have caused all sides to take stock in the North. Most importantly, it engendered a sense of revulsion among the respectable elements of the Orange Order.
Several of its Church of Ireland chaplains either resigned or threatened to do so. The exact numbers remain unclear.
The scenes at Drumcree, where members of the dissident paramilitary organisation, the Loyalist Volunteer Force, launched blast bomb and gun attacks on the RUC, caused immense damage to the Orange Order's image.
The international media dissemination of the news pictures from the Quinn home in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, and the scenes from Drumcree have, some unionists agree, sufficiently damaged the Orange position to have brought about a desire for compromise over Garvaghy Road.
If Mr Saulters succeeds in his proposal to the Grand Lodge meeting this Saturday, the order might be prepared to join the community forum for the entire community in Portadown.
In this forum, similar to the one already established in Derry in connection with the once-highly controversial Apprentice Boys march, the Orangemen and residents can work out a compromise.
There has been strong community opposition to the march in Garvaghy Road. This stems mainly from the actions of the LVF in Portadown, which has been responsible for the murders of several young Catholic men from the area in recent years, including Adrian Lamph (29), shot dead in the town on May 21st.
Some people responsible for his and other loyalist sectarian murders in the town were prominent at the Drumcree rioting. According to Catholic residents, it was this which prompted their total opposition to the march.
However, Garvaghy residents who spoke to The Irish Times gave the clear impression of being prepared to countenance a compromise that would allow Orangemen to march along the road, as long as they were consulted.
The Orange opposition to direct talks with the residents has centred on the residents' spokesman, Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, who served a term of imprisonment for his part in a Provisional IRA bomb attack on the British Legion hall in the town in the early 1980s. Mr Mac Cionnaith was also seen as being very close to the Sinn Fein leadership.
Orangemen and loyalists view opposition to the march as part of a concerted plan by Irish nationalism - spearheaded by Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA - to destroy Orangeism and loyalist culture.
Mr Saulters's signal over the weekend that he would prefer to see a negotiated settlement is, therefore, one of the most promising developments in terms of seeking an internal communal settlement of what are, in effect, very serious ethnic violence problems in Northern society.
A resolution of the Garvaghy problem would also help repair some of the massive economic damage being inflicted on the North's tourist industry and on inward industrial investment.