IT VAS probably inevitable, given the clay that was in it, that the headline writers would reach for phrases like "The Relief of Derry" to describe what happened last weekend.
They didn't, I noticed, say much about what came afterwards - Aughrim and the Boyne, the Treaty of Limerick and Sarsfield's army sailing for France. But let's not, whatever we do, get hung up on history.
It's true that one could almost hear a collective sigh being breathed across the city of Derry last Friday morning, when Martin McGuinness said that he would like to see the Bogside Residents' Group reroute the rally, planned for that evening, to avoid passing close to any Protestant areas.
Much has been written about what happened being a victory for common sense. Satisfaction was expressed that not only Derry, but Northern Ireland, had managed once again to pull back from the brink.
But it felt much too close, this time, for comfort or complacency. My impression was that very many, probably the majority of people, did not want any violence in Derry. John Hume spoke for them, as did church and business leaders who appealed for a compromise.
There were face-to-face talks between the two sides and that, in itself, represented an advance on what had happened in other parts of Northern Ireland. But there was no sign of a compromise, nor did one emerge from negotiations.
On the contrary, Derry confirmed the pattern that had already emerged at Drumcree and in the Lower Ormeau Road - that the community which can muster the numbers gets its way.
Derry's nationalists were in the majority which is why Sir Patrick Mayhew closed a section of the walls. He is reported to have told the Apprentice Boys that he knew the decision was "unjust", but could see no alternative to it.
He may also have thought that the nationalist community needed "cheering up, for Heaven's sake", something to soften the anger that followed Drumcree. Even so, my impression as late as Thursday night was that there were plenty of people on both sides who were spoiling for a fight.
There was no serious confrontation on the streets of Derry last weekend because Martin McGuinness and Sinn Fein decided against it. Everybody who was in the city knows this, but few people are prepared to say so publicly, first because they are grateful that the parades went off peacefully, but also because they do not want to pander to the accusations that the whole argument over the Orange marches has been deliberately "got up" by Sinn Fein, which is an over-simplification of all that happened since Drumcree.
"Martin played a blinder. It was a high-risk strategy for us, but he took it right down to the wire and then pulled back," one Sinn Fein supporter told me with satisfaction.
If this is true it could be the most hopeful development to emerge from the events of the past few weeks. At the very least, it indicates, as does Sinn Fein's active involvement in local residents' groups, that the Provos have no immediate intention or desire to return to full-scale violence. Excluded from the talks, politics on the streets has been seized as an alternative.
Unionists have deplored that the residents' groups which have been most prominent in the issue of the Orange marches all seem to be led by men who have served long sentences for IRA offences.
One angry Apprentice Boy said to me in Derry last week that the marches had become the battleground for Sinn Fein to operate its alternative, unarmed strategy. He was particularly incensed, as many unionists are, by the idea of having to negotiate about anything with a convicted IRA man.
But arguing about the route of contentious parades, trying to draw a fair balance between conflicting rights, must be better than the threat of a return to the killing fields.
As to the involvement of fonder prisoners, it demonstrates a serious commitment on the part of people who, we know from experience, can play a crucial role in deciding whether Northern Ireland moves towards peace or war.
The whole point of the peace process has been to draw into the political process men and women who have, in the past, believed that change can be achieved only through violence. That applies to many others who still have to be convinced that "Jaw, Jaw is better than War, War".
We know, from watching the development of both Sinn Fein and the loyalist paramilitary groups what an important role has been played by former paramilitary prisoners.
I am well aware that this may sound as if I am trying to glamorise, or at the very least justify, people who may have been guilty of inflicting terrible suffering by their crimes.
The horror of punishment beatings and of continuing violence is still with us. But the task of politicians, on all sides, is to convince those who have espoused such methods to embrace the democratic process.
IT WOULD be difficult to overstate the political benefits Drumcree has handed to Sinn Fein. The key word here is "handed". Six weeks ago, the party was visibly struggling. It was excluded from the Stormont talks and increasingly isolated by the two governments. The Manchester bomb and the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe had led to a dramatic slippage in public support. President Clinton was becoming increasingly impatient about the IRA's failure to restore its ceasefire.
But, however the unionist leadership argues it, the situation at Drumcree was not of Sinn Fein's making. On the contrary, the party repeatedly warned that, given the rising tensions in both communities, the Orange marching season presented a particular danger this year.
So did many other people, including the deputy chief constable of the RUC, the Irish Government and Dr Mo Mowlam, the British Labour Party's Northern Ireland spokesperson.
It was hardly a surprise that there was trouble in Garvaghy Road and the lower Ormeau, yet a kind of collective political paralysis seems to have prevailed. It is hardly reasonable to blame Sinn Fein because the party moved in to fill an obvious vacuum. That is what politics is about.
In Derry last weekend, one Sinn Fein activist said to me: "They've excluded us from the talks. Well, these are the alternative negotiations - on the streets."
That may be expedient in the short term, but the streets are not the place to negotiate an inclusive political settlement for the North. That will have to be done, with all the other parties to the conflict, around a table.
It may be that by demonstrating its command of street politics, Sinn Fein has strengthened its case for being admitted to the talks when they resume next month. But that is going to require a degree of political ingenuity and courage from both governments and from Sinn Fein itself.