Over many years of reporting, and on many roads in this place, I have seen the scattered debris of politics, policing and parading; seen it at those flash-points and 'clash-points' where contested marches have been met by protest.

Rubble on the roads. The spent casings of plastic bullets. The scorch marks left by burned out vehicles. The injured. All of this in twisted picture frames that display and exhibit the opposite of peace.

This is not the debris we are looking at in television coverage and photographs from Portadown.

The shrapnel is in the angry words that are being spoken. And, once again, everything is on the line - the new policing project approaching its 25th birthday, the fractured and fraught politics at Stormont and that thing we call community relations.

Warning: This story contains language some readers may find offensive

The ghosts of Drumcree have been wakened by alarms sounded in the decisions of recent days.

A police source used two words to sum it up: "S*** show."

The Parades Commission is in the spotlight along with the chief constable and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Unionists have their eyes on Sinn Féin - including First Minister Michelle O'Neill - and on the protest that blocked the route of this morning's planned parade.

Was it ever going to be any other way? No it wasn't. The decision makers missed every beat in the nationalist pulse.

The damage is done.

Unionists are furious.

After 28 long years, there was the promise of a much-reduced home parade.

Furious also at what they see as the New Ireland conversation being forced down their throats – and in their minds today's events making a mockery of any suggestion of a shared future.

Nationalists are furious. We hear the commentary of a community being re-traumatised.

And, in the fallout, we are hearing the tone being set for the electoral battles of 2027.

Sinn Féin is being asked the same questions it was being asked in the lead up to 2017 when Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy first minister.

There is always a question about Stormont's future, and that question is louder now.

And there is always another chance for Stormont because of the implications for peace in circumstances of failed politics.

Today, as politics here sits between a rock and a hard place, we are again reminded of the unfinished business of that peace and of roads yet to travel.