By Kevin Connolly BBC News Ireland correspondent

There is no shortage of bizarre spectacle to be had in Northern Ireland's Protestant marching season, with its seemingly endless parades of colourful bands and bowler-hatted Orangemen in the full regalia of their order.

But there is no sight quite so odd as the annual confrontation outside Drumcree church in County Armagh between the security forces and the Portadown Orangemen, who in other circumstances would see themselves as pillars of law-abiding respectability.

You are probably familiar by now with this annual ritual.

Soldiers put up a steel barrier on Drumcree bridge

The Orangemen march out from the centre of Portadown to Drumcree church in the gently rolling farmland on the edge of the town.

There is nothing controversial about the outward leg of the journey, but their desire to march back into town along the Garvaghy Road brings them into conflict with the authorities.

They say this is their traditional route, but in the years since they first took it a great deal has changed in Northern Ireland.

An overwhelmingly Catholic housing estate has sprung up along the road and the mainly nationalist residents object to the parade.

The local lodge of the Orange Order will not talk to the Parades Commission, which was set up to arbitrate on such contentious marches, and will not talk to the Garvaghy Road residents because they say they are led by former republican prisoners.

In the early years of the dispute, in the middle of the 1990s, the issue provoked ferocious rioting - on the nationalist side when the parade was allowed down the road - then by "supporters" of the Orangemen when it was not.

Rumours

More recently the crowds on the Orange side have been dwindling and there have been signs that some of the heat has begun to go out of the issue.

But this being Northern Ireland the heat has subsided without any sign of a real solution emerging.

Every year at about this time rumours begin to circulate that some sort of solution is in the offing.

This time it was hinted that the Orange Order might be prepared to enter into talks in the future if it was allowed to parade down the road just once.

Of course to the Garvaghy Road residents that sounds rather as if the Orangemen are only prepared to negotiate in circumstances where they have already been given everything they want. In any case, nothing has come of the idea so far.

Soldiers move into the fields surrounding Drumcree Church

The most hopeful sign that Drumcree will pass off peacefully this year though lies in the general atmosphere surrounding the current marching season.

Contentious parades in flashpoint areas of north, east and west Belfast have all passed off peacefully.

Prominent members of the republican movement - accused by unionists in the past of encouraging or even organising rioting - have been much in evidence ensuring that things pass off peacefully.

Something rather similar has been happening on the loyalist side.

It is all enough to make you think that some sort of political game is afoot.

Devolution and power-sharing are of course suspended at the moment and assembly elections due in May were cancelled.

Some sort of effort will be made in the autumn to get things moving again politically, but it won't be easy.

Contentious

The government wants to see some sort of gesture from republicans spectacular enough to tempt moderate unionism back into power-sharing - an "Act of Completion" in the jargon of the peace process.

There has been no sign so far that such a gesture is forthcoming.

But it is just possible the republican movement has decided that playing a high-profile role in delivering a quiet summer might help it to argue to the British Government that it is serious about peace, and should perhaps be rewarded, perhaps with the early elections it craves.

Only a theory of course, and it could all go horribly wrong if stones, or even harsh words, are thrown at any of the contentious parades to come.

But it might explain why the marching season has been relatively quiet so far and why the prospects for a quiet Drumcree are a little better than usual. We will see.