So this is culture? A look at the Eleventh Night bonfires

THE BONFIRE — central to the celebration of Orange and Protestant culture —  is billed as an occasion for family fun on the Eleventh Night . . . But is it?

According to folklore, the bonfires were lit on the banks of Belfast Lough to guide King William of Orange and his fleet into Carrickfergus when he arrived in Ireland in 1690.

That’s where the fun and folklore stop.

An Phoblacht reporter Peadar Whelan photographed a number of these pyres throughout Belfast and Carrickfergus over the last 24 hours.

They are bedecked with images of Sinn Féin and non-unionist politicians, Irish national flags, Glasgow Celtic soccer shirts, any symbol of republicanism, nationalism or Catholicism (including statues stolen from churches and memorials), swastikas and racist and anti-Palestinian slogans.

Election posters of Anna Lo, the Chinese-born Alliance Party MLA, the subject of an insidious campaign of racial hatred, is prominent on these bonfires.

The effigy of Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams being ‘lynched’ on the bonfire at Ballycraigy in Larne and one of East Belfast Councillor and former Mayor of Belfast Niall Ó Donnghaile in Cluan Place seems to be this year's low so far bearing in mind that last year, as part of the ‘family fun’, unionists hung an effigy of west Belfast priest Fr Matt Wallace from their pile).

Unionists — including members of the mainstream DUP and Ulster Unionist parties — bring their families and children to these bonfires.

They celebrate this as British culture — their unionist culture.

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