(by Henry McDonald, The Observer)

THE river Lagan which runs from its source in the Mourne mountains down to the centre of Belfast and into the Irish Sea has become the focus of post-ceasefire reconstruction in Northern Ireland. At the mouth of Belfast Lough there are hundreds of Yuppie apartments fetching up to half a million pounds on the Province's soaring property market. New fashionable restaurants and bars are springing up along the river's edge. There is even a water taxi service sailing along the river from the harbour in the city centre to local beauty spots up stream such as Shaw's Bridge. Dominating the city's skyline beside the Lagan next to the recently opened Hilton Hotel is the ultimate symbol of the new supposedly peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland - the Conference Centre, a flying-saucer shaped building where President Clinton urged all 108 Assembly members to take risks for peace last Autumn.

But tomorrow (Monday) on the 12th of July - Ulster loyalism's most sacred day - the river becomes, for 24 hours at least, a geopolitical barrier, a natural dividing line between unionists and nationalists in south Belfast. The bridge over the Lagan on the Ormeau Road will be blocked by lines of RUC land rovers, backed up by hundreds of police and troops. They will be deployed to prevent a small parade of several hundred Orangemen marching through the Lower Ormeau Road towards the city centre where they were meant to have joined between 20 to 40,000 fellow loyalists commemorating the victory of Prince William of Orange over Catholic King James II in 1690.

Now the largest gathering of the Protestant Orange Order will re-route their traditional march from a field in Edenderry, south-west of Belfast, to the Ormeau area in solidarity with their brethren from the area. The scene will be set for a potentially dangerous confrontation between Orange marchers and their supporters and the security forces with nationalist residents in the Lower Ormeau watching on with trepidation across the river. And in the week when Ulster Unionist Party leader David Trimble has to make up his mind whether or not to back Tony Blair's plan to call Sinn Féin's bluff - that is, let them into government and see if the IRA really wants to disarm - the impact of any violent clashes on the southern side of the Lagan could help to destabilise the entire political process.

Paradoxically for eleven months of the year the Upper Ormeau is probably the most successfully integrated area of Northern Ireland. The area has a reputation for being Belfast's Hampstead given the large concentration of media figures working for local newspapers and broadcasting organisations living there. It also has a growing student population and critically an increasing Catholic middle-class comprised of lawyers, teachers and civil servants. This eclectic social mix is serviced by some of the trendiest bars and highly rated cafes in the city. Yet amid the Upper Ormeau's new affluence is the traditional but shrinking base of working-class Protestants in places such as the drab Annadale Flats complex who have not shared in the area's prosperity and who, rightly or wrongly, see the rise in the number of Catholics south of the bridge as a threat. For them to be banned not only from the lower part of the road, but also originally from the Ormeau Park on the 12th of July merely fuels their paranoia about a wider Papist take-over.

Barry Moore, the press officer for the local Ballynafeigh Orange Lodge, believes the strategy of the nationalist Lower Ormeau Concerned Community is being extended to the upper end of the road. The residents group's demand that the largest loyalist demonstration in Ireland be banned from the Ormeau Park of turning the entire road into an Orange free zone. He says the anger of local loyalists is reaching boiling point.

"I think the feelings of Protestants about the ban on marching down the Lower Ormeau has been exacerbated by the Parades Commission's initial willingness to ban the entire Orange Order from the park."

Fears that a stand-off on the Lagan's edge will spark a wider conflagration in the city is not only shared by Orangemen like Moore. The mainstream loyalist paramilitary groups are also worried about the effect the ban will have on the entire unionist community. It is understood the Ulster Volunteer Force have offered their services to the Orange Order to prevent clashes between Protestant youths emboldened with drink and the RUC and army on Ormeau Bridge. The UVF will be deploying their own marshals alongside (but not in collusion with) Orange Order security staff to ensure there is no violence. But the pro-ceasefire terror group and the loyalist marching institution will have to make colossal efforts to stem trouble in such an ethnically charged atmosphere as the Twelfth when Protestant passions are at their highest.

The RUC, having so far enjoyed a relatively quiet stand-off at Drumcree in Portadown, are deeply worried about the potential for violence on the Ormeau Road tomorrow. One senior office said: "Monday could be horrendous on the bridge. No one is looking forward to it given the prospect of clashes down there."

Nationalist representatives are fearful about the long term effect of the mass rally on the relative harmony of the Upper Ormeau area. Carmel Hanna, an SDLP Assembly member for South Belfast said: "It has the potential for disorder and to cause long term damage to community relations in this area." While the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community - the residents' group which objected to the original "feeder" parade passing through its area - labelled the Orange Order's decision to re-route their largest demonstration of the marching season to the Ormeau Park as "insane."

Around half past twelve yesterday afternoon the body which has the power to ban Orange marches, the Parades Commission, approved of the Orange Order's new route to Ormeau Park which will take marchers away from the Ormeau Road to an entrance facing Ian Paisley's "Martyrs Memorial" church in east Belfast. The Order will be hoping that their stewards can create a strong enough cordon to stop young militant loyalists from getting near police lines on the bridge. The LOCC meanwhile condemned the decision and threatened High Court action over the weekend to prevent the demonstration taking place. It may be too late for the nationalist residents' group to legally halt the Orange rally but there is no guarantee that there will be peace on either side of the river Lagan tomorrow.

The Ormeau Park has long been a historically significant venue for Ulster loyalists. On March 18 1972, two weeks after Edward Heath abolished the Stormont parliament, up to 60,000 loyalists gathered there for a rally by the Vanguard movement. Vanguard's leader and former guru for David Trimble, William Craig told the mass demonstration that loyalists had the ability to "liquidate the enemy". To many nationalists across the river Lagan, the roar of the Orange masses in the park on that day exuded menace. And to moderate unionists seeking a power-sharing compromise with the SDLP the Ormeau rally marked the beginning of the end of Brian Faulkner, Northern Ireland's last Prime Minister who was forced out of office two years later in a general strike partly engineered by the Vanguard movement. One of the strike's backroom strategists was a young law lecturer from Queen's University Belfast called David Trimble. Twenty-seven years later Trimble's own attempts to shift unionism towards a historic compromise may be, at the very best, severely curtailed by events tomorrow at Ormeau Park.

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