Was it The Kiss That Launched a Thousand Petrol Bombs? Surely not.
Surely the religious marchers were not so emboldened by the presidential embrace and the soft words of The Policeman that they fondly believed that the Dublin and London administrations were on their side?
We could have told them that Dublin and London administrations are on nobody's side but their own.
But, of course, they never listen to the only people who can tell them the truth and show them what to do – that is the Fenians, of course, the only real friends the unionists have when Hardy comes to Hardy and when the chips are down and, as their nicer leaders keep saying, at the end of the day.
You can understand the Orange marchers' problem – when a member of one of their sister organisations gets a big embrace from a President and when a high policeman like Hugh Árd, says "Don't mind them, they're harmless," they think it is time to show their teeth.
Again.
And so with their hardy Old Testament God behind them and a banner in front of them off they go, Onward Christian soldiers marching as to war, with their lord behind them and the peelers there before.
But even with the Dublin-government-sponsored presidential embrace and the London-sponsored soft peeler words something went wrong.
And that something is interesting indeed.
Right through the past forty years London people made it clear that they thought they could successfully fight those who wanted a free united Ireland – they couldn't, of course, but they thought they could – but only if they did not have to fight their own loyalists at the same time.
Think Algeria. War on two fronts frightened them. So that had to be avoided.
They selected one side to favour and another to beat into the ground.
It might have worked, but as they failed to beat down those who wanted a free and prosperous Ireland for everybody, their supporters got restless and even sullen.
It was good for London, then, that the republicans stopped fighting them militarily. Now London could prove its ability and willingness to impose discipline on its own followers – there was no longer a danger of them having to fight on two fronts at the same time, a task for which British commanders are doubly unfitted.
But, of course, they did nothing of the sort.
Did they use the opportunity to impose order and peace on their followers? Not at all. On the contrary, the camp followers got every encouragement to do what they always did, burn people out, desecrate churches, frighten children going to school.
Brave, brave. And like the Bold Gendarme of the song, their police did nothing to stop it. Membership of the lodge and the favour of well-heeled neighbours was at stake and a fellow – or girl – does not want to risk that.
And so the position rested until things went wrong. The presidential embrace and the soft speech of The Policeman had a bad, bad effect.
They made the unionists think that indeed both Dublin and London were on their side.
Alas, fatal error. We could have told them but were they listening?
So they misinterpreted the intentions of both administrations. The loyalists want to draw the IRA back into war by burning people's houses, provoking residents, threatening sparks that light fires that last forever like the fires of hell their preachers used to preach about until people stopped heeding them.
So they rioted. The Fenians, they thought, would respond and the peelers would fight the Fenians as usual and Dublin and London and RTE and all would join in saying it was the Fenians' fault.
But it went wrong, horribly wrong.
The unionists ended up fighting their own peelers and now the rows that erupted in the streets will be as nothing – politically – compared to the rows that will erupt in and about the lodges when the leaders, clerical and others, have to face what is happening.
They are putting London in danger of having opposition, serious opposition, on two fronts – rational political opposition from republicans and nationalists on the one side, violent anti-intellectual opposition from the unionists on the other.
Egad sir, what we always said might happen! As John McKeague used to say, "The Taigs will not do it alone, the Prods will not do it alone, but if they both get together..."
It won't be quite like that, not yet anyway.
Out will come the beautiful people who kept silent, saying nothing as they were blinded by the smoke of burning houses and deafened by the cries of the preachers.
And they will form peace groups and they will request – not force now, request – the unionists to be quieter, demanding yet more concessions from republicans and yet more compliance from nationalists and the usual from the churches.
And all will be quiet once again and the Irish Times will tell us how generous the loyalists are to stop killing Catholics and shooting police and how if republicans were only to do something dramatic and convincing (like leaving the country maybe never to return?) all would be well.
And that nice man whom the President embraced would get a peace award from the Meath Peace Group and we don't know what else might not happen.
All nonsense, of course. London has no intention of using the cessation of military action by republicans to discipline its own racist followers in Ireland.
Hugh Árd, one thought, would last about two and a half years in the job; now the knives are probably being sharpened.
And Dublin has no intention of taking on the failed and inefficient economy of the northeast and preachers have no intentions except to preach.
So when all is said and nothing done, and when the chips are down and at the end of the day, we shall be back where we started.
That is, being even more certain than ever that what we need is strong protective laws that mean something, efficient police to enforce them and honourable judges to run the courts so that we can trust them, and no more presidential embraces and soft words until London learns to discipline its followers and give up what it has mismanaged for so long.
