Baton charges and burning cars, this was peaceful protest Portadown-style. By last night the four-hour protest called for on Sunday by the Orange Order had brought the area to a standstill.
The black fumes from a silver Ford Fiesta, set alight and pushed on to the main Dublin-Belfast railway line, a portent of the unrest that was to come.
It was around 6 p.m. when the burning car was spotted under the railway bridge close to the town where a protest had been under way.
As the fumes from the hijacked Fermanagh-registered car grew blacker so did the mood. Around 500 protesters blocked the roads at the roundabout at the top of the town, seeming unsure of what action to take.
Some sat down on the road and urged others to do the same. Others retreated but were told: "If you stay away they will think we are bate. What are you running for?"
So they came forward, surrounded on both sides by lines of RUC and army, firing off rockets and throwing stones. "Stop throwing, this is meant to be peaceful," a few of the crowd told those gathering missiles. The pleas were ignored.
Suddenly the RUC in full riot gear moved in, charging the crowd with batons. A woman said she had been kicked in the leg by an RUC officer. Two journalists were hit with an officer's baton as they charged past in pursuit of protesters. The middle-aged woman sat on the side of the road wailing, in shock. The rest of the crowd ran into the Corcrain estate.
The afternoon had begun with the desertion of the town as almost all businesses closed their doors by 3 p.m., the shutters coming down against whatever the protest might bring. "There is no panic. This is just part and parcel of life in Portadown," said one man as he closed the bank he worked in.
By the time the bells at St Mark's Church rang out at four o'clock, a couple of hundred people had gathered at the Orange Hall in Carleton Street to hear about the kind of action required.
They emerged after the meeting intent on blocking the roads with their own brand of people power.
They wore orange ribbons, carried loyalist flags and spoke about their right to march the Garvaghy Road. The RUC and army were in position quickly, and just as quickly the taunts began.
"This isn't the Falklands," shouted one protester with a Scottish accent. "This is Ulster. Look in a dictionary". "Call yourself a Brit," shouted one woman at an army officer.
Later the crowd chanted "SS RUC". Three teenagers with peroxide blond hair began to rock an army vehicle from side to side. Grinning, they fiddled with the valve in the wheel and air hissed slowly from a tyre.
An Orange Order member with a loud-hailer mingled with the crowd, which included children, as they moved into the Edgars town estate.
There they passed an almost finished bonfire construction, due to be lit tonight, towering behind a painted sign: "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. No Surrender," it read.
The protest was due to end at eight o'clock, but when the time came a standoff between protesters and the RUC at Corcrain, with bottles and stones being thrown, showed no sign of lifting. Locals stood watching from a nearby bridge and from their doorways.
Children squealed with excitement and rode around on their bikes. And as the cameras rolled, Portadown became headline news for the eighth consecutive night.
