The North's most controversial march has taken its toll on the local rector who is about to retire but sees hope for the future, writes Patsy McGarry
Today, when even the steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone have been subsumed in peace, that of the Church of the Ascension on Drumcree hill stands in somewhat splendid isolation, adorned with two Union flags, as it awaits Portadown's Orangemen for the 11 o'clock service tomorrow morning. The integrity of their quarrel with residents on the Garvaghy Road remains unaltered in the great change which has swept Northern Ireland.
But there are changes. The Orangemen have, finally, agreed to talk to the residents, but it is now the residents who say "no".
Meanwhile the Parades Commission is seeking a mediator to deal with both sides and no less a figure than former taoiseach Albert Reynolds has been suggested as an acceptable candidate by no less a group than the Portadown Loyal Orange Lodge.
There is growing belief that "Drumcree" is on its last legs.
An unexpected factor in all of this, apart from developments elsewhere in Northern Ireland, has been the growth in numbers of Portuguese residents on the Garvaghy Road. Though Catholic too, they are said to be mystified by "Drumcree".
One man who will soon be saying goodbye to all that is Rev John Pickering, rector of Drumcree for 24 years. On September 30th he will leave his post. Currently, there is no queue of Church of Ireland clergy clamouring to take his place.
Tomorrow will be his 13th Drumcree to heaven, as Dylan Thomas might have put it. He was there through the first one in 1995 and since has withstood great pressures, even deep division in his church, over whether the morning service on Drumcree Sunday should go ahead.
He insisted it would. "I couldn't close the church. People have a God-given right to attend worship," he said yesterday. Of his critics he said "they thought that if the church was closed, associations of the church with violence would disappear. What they were doing was attacking a symptom of a symptom."
"Drumcree" was symptomatic of the wider divisions in the North, he said, and what happened there could have happened anywhere there.
He does not deny that the past 13 years have taken a toll. In the earlier, more intense "Drumcrees", he and his family lived from July to Christmas reflecting on "Drumcree" past and from Christmas to July on "Drumcree" to come.
There was the lack of sleep, tiredness, forgetting to eat properly, constant phone calls. Some from people offering advice on how to handle matters, which he had often been given already; some with bad advice which he often didn't have time to counter; and abusive calls. Then there were the calls from media all over the world.
His daughter and only child Sarah had a serious health scare at the height of it all in the late 1990s, but made a complete recovery. She teaches at a junior high school near Portadown.
His wife Olive always dealt with the abusive calls, he said. A strong Limerick woman, those of us in the media would have been familiar with the firm but fair way she dealt with queries and how well she protected her husband. We would also have become aware in recent years of her deteriorating health.
She had radium treatment for cancer 25 years ago. Asked whether she had been affected by Drumcree, Pickering said: "I'm sure it didn't help Olive at all. Her immune system broke down. It [ Drumcree] could well have contributed to her failing health, he said. "We will never know definitely".
She died in March of last year. He continues "to miss her so much".
It is partly why he has decided to call it a day, he said. He is also in his 67th year.
He met Olive while he was a student at Trinity College Dublin in the mid-1960s. They met again after he was ordained and they married in 1975 while he was rector at Cootehill, Co Cavan. After that there were in Keady, Co Armagh from 1980 to 1983, when they moved to Drumcree. It is a predominantly rural parish of about 370 families (950 people).
What had happened was so unexpected.
"It was all quite an experience. I had never expected anything like this in my ministry at any time," he said.
He will retire to nearby Craigavon where he plans to write a book about it all. He wants it to be a book about hope. He wants to see Drumcree become a symbol of healing; an illustration that no matter what your problem is, it can be solved.
He looks forward to the day when people in seemingly hopeless situations can be urged, "look at Drumcree".
It may not be far off.