Now entering its third day, the Garvaghy Road dispute has triggered a cycle of polarisation not seen since the Belfast City Flag Protests of 2012, with even the future of powersharing called into question.
Both sides of the divide are hunkering down in order to fend off radicals on their respective flanks – and even if the 35 Orange Brethren of Portadown District do not make it more than twenty feet out of Drumcree Church, the ramifications of the week herald the dawn of a new, more retrograde Stormont, simultaneously stunting Sinn Féin’s pluralist approach and feeding insecurities within unionism.