Political education starts at an early age in Portadown. "Born to shit on the Garvaghy Road" is emblazoned on bibs for sale in the town centre. With just a week until the day of reckoning, the Drumcree support shop is buzzing. Loyalists arrive to buy tea towels, tapes, and key-rings commemorating the annual Orange Order standoff with the authorities.

The order hasn't made it down the Garvaghy Road for three years but the messages left in the shop's visitors' book are defiant: "No Surrender"; "It's now or never"; "We will fight to the last".

The Parades Commission is expected to announce its decision on the annual march on Monday. The general consensus on both sides is that the parade will be banned. The big question is: what will loyalists do then?

Will their protests be contained and relatively peaceful or will we see rioting, illegal roadblocks and sectarian attacks across the North? The order had applied to march down the Garvaghy Road tomorrow as well. It has been refused, and the protests are expected to begin next week.

There are few places where divisions run deeper than in Portadown, home to 22,000 Protestants and 8,000 Catholics. The town centre is awash with Union flags and red-white-and-blue bunting.

"It's our heritage and we're proud of it," says a man leaving the loyalist shop.

"We feel like outcasts in our own town," says a nationalist resident.

Around 1,000 Orangemen will attend a religious service at Drumcree Church next Sunday as they have done for 193 years. They then aim to march down the Garvaghy Road on their mile-and-a-half journey to Carleton Orange Hall in the town centre.

Most of Portadown's Catholics live in the eight housing estates off the Garvaghy Road. Fresh Tricolours fly from every lamppost. On their way to Drumcree Church, the Orangemen take a non-contentious route, via the Corcrain Road. Nationalists want them to return that way too.

"The only reason loyalists want to come down the Garvaghy Road is to stamp their supremacy on this community and we are not standing for that," says Mr Breandan Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy Road Residents' Coalition.

"We aren't asking for privileges. We just want to be treated the same as everybody else. We have the right to live free from sectarian harassment, fear and intimidation. The British government signed up to that in the Good Friday Agreement and we expect it to keep its word."

In previous years in the run-up to Drumcree, the Garvaghy Road has been tense. But this time there is an air of calm and a belief that the Drumcree parade will be banned. A group of women sit in the sun smoking outside the community centre.

"I can't see them letting the Orangemen through," says Ms Teresa Murray. "When they did that before, the RUC beat us off the streets and they won't be allowed to do that again."

"There is some apprehension around here but generally people are relaxed," notes Mr Mac Cionnaith. "The Parades Commission has banned the march for the past two years saying the Orange Order must talk to this community. Well, the order is still refusing so there are no grounds for the commission to change its mind unless there is political interference."

Nationalist residents' groups have previously been hostile to Northern secretaries of state but when asked for an opinion on Peter Mandelson, there is no obvious antagonism from Mr Mac Cionnaith. "Time will tell" is all he says.

In the past, Garvaghy residents planned protests just in case the march was eventually allowed down the road but nothing has been drawn up for this year.

Mr Mac Cionnaith believes Drumcree is no longer the potent rallying point it once was. He thinks it significant that only 500 people attended what was meant to be a huge pre-Drumcree rally in Portadown last weekend.

"It will be thousands, not tens of thousands, of loyalists up there next Sunday. They have lost support in their own community. More Protestants have seen the intimidation practised by those involved."

Mr Ivor Young, however, insists the loyalist community isn't beaten.

"We just need to toughen up. We have to find the same dedication the IRA had. Fair play to the IRA - they had one goal and they did everything possible to achieve it. If loyalists had fought for Ulster in the same way, things would be very different. Loyalists need to get serious."

A member of Portadown District Lodge, Mr Young stresses he is speaking personally and not on behalf of the order. The Orangemen were shafted by the British government at Drumcree last year, he says. They were led to believe that if they dispersed peacefully after the church service, they would be allowed down the Garvaghy Road either later that day or that week. Once the heat was taken out of the situation, the order found it impossible to rally the troops again.

"People won't be leaving Drumcree so easily this year," Mr Young says. "If we take a beating from the police, it could be the spark which ignites a fire all over Ulster. Ordinary Protestants would awaken. We have seen it happen in the nationalist community. People are injured, they become heroes and everyone rallies round them."

He insists that if the Drumcree protest spreads across the North, the Parades Commission could be forced to reverse any ban. "If commerce is affected, there will be a rapid change of policy."

Mr Jeffrey Gray, another hardline loyalist, opposes dialogue with the Garvaghy Road residents.

"The Apprentice Boys have talked to the Lower Ormeau residents in Belfast and they still don't get down the road. Breandan Mac Cionnaith was jailed for a bomb attack on the British Legion in this town. Talking to him is talking to Sinn Fein/IRA."

Mr Gray can't understand why residents object to "a church parade accompanied by an accordion band playing hymns" passing their homes for 15 minutes every year.

Drumcree hilltop is currently an oasis of peace. But this time next week it will be transformed into a battlefield as the British Army digs trenches, and erects rows of barbed wire and steel to block the Orangemen's way.

A cafe, complete with pots of Orange lilies and loyalist posters, has been set up to provide sustenance for the protesters.

"This is the hillside cafe and it will be in Egon Ronay's next guide," jokes a customer.

The Loyalist Volunteer Force will be supporting any Drumcree protest but it is the attitude of other loyalist paramilitaries which will be crucial. It is understood the Ulster Volunteer Force will not become involved. There has been talk of Ulster Defence Association backing.

A UDA commander from the Shankill Road is keen to give his support but it is understood his wings have been clipped after a threat to end the organisation's ceasefire - which he issued - was withdrawn by the leadership.

The Orange Order itself is split over tactics. One loyalist source in Portadown believes all these divisions will prove fatal for any Drumcree protest.

"There is no unity among loyalists. There are too many disparate groups and too many petty jealousies both inside the order and the paramilitaries," he said.

"There is no charismatic figure to give leadership. If Billy Wright was alive it would be very different. Billy only had to walk up Drumcree hill and the atmosphere turned electric. People thought `something will happen' but there is nobody like him now."

Jeffrey Gray, however, refuses to contemplate defeat.

"With God's grace and good men willing to take a stand, we will march down the Garvaghy Road this year. Drumcree is no longer a protest, it's a conflict. People will get hurt but that's what happens in conflicts."