THE incarceration of Billy Wright will ease some tensions as the North enters its anxious marching season. Still, whether Drumcree Mark III will be as bad as the previous two does not hinge on Wright being in or outside prison.
That's chiefly a matter for other players, notably the Orange Order, the nationalist residents' groups - and more worryingly, the paramilitaries.
It's still stalemate between the loyal orders and the nationalist residents in areas like Portadown, the Ormeau Road in Belfast, Dunloy and Bellaghy. And recently the loyalist paramilitaries have been making noises that, if necessary, they will fill the role played by Wright at Drumcree last year.
Nonetheless, a potential troublemaker is out of the way. The UVF from which Wright had been ostracised felt, in any case, that the dissident loyalist had already been sufficiently nobbled to obviate any threat from him or his confederates.
Since Drumcree, about a dozen of his associates, including an expelled UDA leader who had teamed up with him, have been arrested by the RUC in operations which have disabled his paramilitary power base.
Undoubtedly, there is popular loyalist feeling for him in Portadown and the mid-Ulster area, and that was manifested by the public rally for him in Portadown last September after the UVF issued him with a death threat.
Wright had broken a cardinal rule by threatening Mr Billy Hutchinson, a leading member of the Progressive Unionist Party which is linked to the UVF. He also challenged the authority of the Combined Loyalist Military Command - two moves which were viewed by the formal loyalist leadership as tantamount to treason.
The rally in Portadown, attended by DUP MP, the Rev William McCrea, at least created enough noise to help stall the UVF in carrying out its threat. Perhaps a more important factor was that if Wright had been-assassinated the PUP would have been forced out of the talks.
An uneasy informal truce appears to have operated between the two sides since then, with the UVF, despite the public support, confident it could bring him to heel. In the end it was the RUC which brought him to book, in an inquiry which climaxed at Belfast Crown Court yesterday.
Wright is likely to be in prison for at least four years. In the meantime it is expected that both the UDA and the UVF will act to prevent any other maverick loyalist undermining their ascendancy, which could me9 that at Drumcree and other expected Orange protests this year the "official" loyalists will muscle in on the scene.
Wright is a high-profile loyalist who has justified UDA and UVF atrocities such as at Greysteel and Loughinisland. His prominence in the newspaper headlines increased after Drumcree when it emerged he had held talks during the most tense period of last year's Drumcree standoff with the Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mr David Trimble.
Mr Trimble said the purpose of the meetings was to prevent violence. When the death threat was issued against Wright the UUP leader urged mediation to resolve the dispute.
Wright said he twice briefed the Dublin Government about loyalist thinking and more recently warned Dublin would be targeted if the loyalist ceasefire broke down.
He has survived several murder attempts by the IRA and INLA, including one by former INLA leader Dominic McGlinchey.
Wright is said to have served his remand period in prison in isolation because of the dispute with the UVF. Consequently, he may also have to remain separate from the UVF and the UDA while serving his prison sentence.
