So we've come to that time of year again.
Tensions increase, hatches are battened, territory is marked and what is quaintly referred to as "the marching season" takes hold all over the North of Ireland.
And with it we get the depressingly familiar sight of loyalist flags going up around town and country, seemingly indiscriminate in their location.
South Belfast is no exception. The traditionally mixed area at Finaghy Crossroads, after years of tentative progress and in spite of previous tacit agreement, has been plunged back into a sea of red, white and blue, with the loyalist announcement that there will be flags and banners erected there for the next two months.
Similarly, in the integrated suburb of Newton Park, Four Winds residents awoke recently to discover their lampposts adorned with the paraphanalia of the Twelfth.
On both occasions, little or no discourse has been held with ordinary local residents, whose opinion is surely what counts.
In recent weeks, the South Belfast News has been inundated with calls from residents of both traditions living in these areas, saying they neither asked nor wanted their streets to be turned into sectarian thoroughfares.
The anonymous elements who erect these contentious banners are clearly not interested in a genuine consultation with locals in these areas, many of whom feel at best uncomfortable and at worst threatened or intimidated by their presence on their very doorstep.
The disingenuous argument given by many apologists – that provided the flags do not display paramilitary emblems then there is no reason to worry -– does not hold water.
Too many people, rightly or wrongly have a genuine grievance with the Union and Northern Ireland flags that are so prevalent at this time of year. What they represent to many ordinary people cannot be squared with loyalist arguments that they are inoffensive.
It is for this reason that dialogue is essential.
Nobody is saying that loyalist communites cannot celebrate the Twelfth, it is their inalienable right.
But it is also an inalienable human right to be allowed to live free from intimidation.
It was to be hoped that South Belfast could be a template for other interface communities to copy. That hope has been significantly set back.
