An old familiar word got an airing yesterday, sequencing. This time it wasn't about guns or government but about walking and talking, and which comes first. Much reference also to the horse vis-a-vis the cart.
We're on the eve of Northern Ireland's most contentious parade. If the violent protests at Drumcree and elsewhere throughout Northern Ireland this week are the warmup, then the main event tomorrow, and perhaps running into next week, will be a volatile and fiery affair.
The Orange Order has a public relations problem. Senior members admit that. There is a sense of no real leadership, of the hierarchy in the Grand Lodge in Belfast unable to come to grips with how to handle their Portadown colleagues.
The Grand Lodge will condemn violence while Mr Gracey won't. There is no evidence of any marshalling of the protests on the hill at Drumcree. Loyalist paramilitaries fire on police and, it is claimed, on Catholics in Belfast, or egg on 10-year-olds to block roads in the city and elsewhere throughout the North. All in the name of the Orange stand at Drumcree.
Yesterday's unionist News Letter contained a lengthy response in the name of the district master of Portadown district, Mr Harold Gracey, to Monday's Parades Commission ruling on the Drumcree parade.
It detailed the numerous meetings Portadown Orangemen held with various British government ministers, officials and mediators over the past two years in an effort to end the long-running Drumcree saga. It also set out a number of pledges that the Portadown brethren would honour, such as cancelling all Drumcree protests and participating in talks on future Drumcrees with South African mediator Brian Currin - provided Portadown Orangemen get down the nationalist Garvaghy Road tomorrow.
Cart before the horse, chorused Breandan Mac Cionnaith of the Garvaghy residents' grouping, SDLP minister Brid Rodgers and Dara O'Hagan of Sinn Fein. No chance. The message was the same: if the Orangemen want to walk they first have to talk to the people of Garvaghy Road.
But the language of the response was interesting. While listing over 60 meetings on Drumcree over the past two years it also acknowledged that none of these encounters involved face-to-face contact with the Garvaghy representatives.
None the less, Mr Gracey's response in the newspaper described the recent initial pre-mediation talks with Mr Currin as "positive and helpful". He added: "There remains some substantial areas of disagreement between the parties but as far as Portadown district are concerned they will endeavour to overcome these areas and to move forwards into full mediation."
The notion of "full mediation" opened up the possibility of direct engagement with the Garvaghy group - an absolute bottom line as far as nationalists are concerned, and contrary to the policy of the Grand Lodge of the Orange Order.
The Parades Commission later affirmed its ruling of Monday rerouting tomorrow's parade away from Garvaghy Road, and pointing out that Mr Gracey's written response was totally at odds with the commission's decision. It said that it was essential that the "sequencing" remain as in the ruling: in other words, horse before cart - an end to the protests and some form of dialogue with the Garvaghy residents before the parade could take place.
There were honeyed words for the Orangemen, however. The commission said it was impressed with Mr Gracey's "affidavit" and viewed it as having the potential to move the situation forward. It said the Portadown district had demonstrated a "genuine desire to find a resolution to the Drumcree issue".
Plaudits there but any hopes of imminent progress were shattered by lunchtime comments from Mr Gracey who, when questioned at Drumcree by a BBC reporter, refused to condemn the violence attendant on the Drumcree protests. He disclaimed any Orange responsibility for the disturbances, and ruled out any talks with the Garvaghy residents.
"If things get out of hand it is not my fault," he insisted. He would not talk to Breandan Mac Cionnaith but had no problem having former UDA prisoner Johnny Adair on the hill. If Orangemen don't get down Garvaghy Road tomorrow then mediator Mr Currin "may as well pack his bags and go back to South Africa", he said.
The whole tone and content of his remarks contradicted what appeared in his name in the News Letter. But that is hardly surprising because there is much division in the order. Several politicians and commentators have warned that the order appears intent on self-destruction. Friends of the order such as the writer and historian Ruth Dudley Edwards wrote last week that the institution appeared "bent on suicide". She did not know what option the order would take "but on present form you can bet they'll unerringly choose the worst option".
But that's to do with the order. What happens tomorrow at Drumcree has to do with civic society in Northern Ireland. All the elements are in place for another dangerous standoff at Drumcree tomorrow: thousands of Orangemen on the hill, loyalist paramilitaries on the sideline, demonstrations, barricades, blockades throughout the North, and perhaps worse.
A long fuse has been lit and it's as if Orangemen are powerless to stamp it out before it reaches the powder keg.