By Mark Devenport BBC Northern Ireland political editor

Reviving the moribund Northern Ireland political process is a hard enough task at the best of time.

But can it be done against a backdrop of renewed clashes over controversial parades?

That's the question this week as politicians ponder the consequences of the latest Ardoyne violence and the re-arrest of Shankill bomber Sean Kelly.

There was trouble during the Tour of the North parade

When the DUP stood on the steps of the Irish Embassy in London after meeting Bertie Ahern it looked like east Belfast had the most potential to cause trouble.

Orangemen there were refusing to fill in their 11/1 application forms to the Parades Commission's satisfaction.

As a consequence, major parades, like the Somme commemoration march on 1 July, appeared likely to be deemed illegal.

However, the technical argument over the correct number of signatures on the form was resolved on Friday when the commission said they would accept forms signed by a number of organisers.

The Orange Order called it a "climb-down". The commission called it "flexibility".

The important thing was that the likelihood of trouble on the streets in the east of the city had receded.

Yet this was a brief respite. That night, there were clashes as Orangemen walked past Ardoyne on the return leg of the Tour of the North parade.

Eighteen police officers and 11 civilians were injured, including a 14-year-old girl who suffered a broken arm.

The police blamed nationalist protesters, saying they would investigate the demonstrators' breach of the Parades Commission ruling which had stipulated that there should be a peaceful protest against the Orange march.

IRA bomber Sean Kelly is back in prison

The next day, Sinn Fein's Gerry Kelly and the DUP's Nigel Dodds engaged in predictable "tit-for-tat" accusations on the BBC's Inside Politics programme.

The North Belfast DUP MP insisted that the Orange marchers and their supporters had been the victims of an "unprovoked assault".

The Sinn Fein assembly member maintained that other attacks on Catholics elsewhere were connected, presumably in an attempt to ramp up tension during the marching season.

Privately, republicans insist they were trying to calm tempers, but admit they have a problem in areas like Ardoyne, where young people do not listen to them with the same kind of respect which could have been assumed a decade ago.

Perhaps it is part and parcel of republicans taking the political route that the kind of youths who view rioting as a form of recreation should increasingly see their local Sinn Fein representative as just another part of the establishment.

If the IRA goes out of business there has to be more than a suspicion that both the respect and, in some cases, fear generated by prominent republicans, could diminish.

Unionists remain predictably sceptical about whether republicans are really using their influence to keep the lid on street unrest.

After Inside Politics was broadcast the news broke that the Shankill bomber Sean Kelly had been returned to jail.

Kelly had been photographed at the scene of some recent street rioting - so was he trying to calm tensions or spurring on the rioters?

Once again, Gerry Kelly and Nigel Dodds were at loggerheads.

The North Belfast MP had raised Sean Kelly's alleged activities in the Commons a few days before his arrest.

One weekend in the summer can be a very long time in Northern Ireland politics

He described the decision to put the Shankill bomber back in jail as "welcome but belated" news.

Gerry Kelly, by contrast, said the move was "harsh" and an "error of judgement".

He insisted that Sean Kelly has played "an invaluable and positive role" in trying to calm things down at north Belfast's interfaces.

With parades at Whiterock in west Belfast, the parade in east Belfast, Drumcree, and the Twelfth itself, including a Derry march, still to come, we are nowhere near out of the woods yet.

Republicans say the timetable for the IRA response will not be dictated by the marching schedule, but they acknowledge that events on the streets will have an impact on the atmosphere.

Irish Premier Bertie Ahern's latest comments indicating an IRA move may not occur until July or August appear to be intended to build in enough leeway to cater for an unpredictable summer.

Senior British sources still believe the IRA will move before the parliamentary recess which is 21 July.

Other sources say it will be well before then.

Nevertheless, as recent days prove, one weekend in the summer can be a very long time in Northern Ireland politics.