Loyalists For Global Warming: Burning Passions In Northern Ireland
GLOBAL warming has nothing on the heat of passion that beats within loyalist breasts.
As part of Northern Ireland’s loyalist celebrations on the Ballycraig estate, Antrim, a fire is being built.
On the eve of the Battle of the Boyne, at which the Protestant King William of Orange defeated the Catholic King James, locals will set the pile alight, possibly with a flaming Vauxhall Nova.
Twice the height of nearby houses, this toxic cake of wooden pallets interlaced with rubber tyres dominates the skyline. On its top sits an Irish tricolour, ready to burn.
Hardline Islamists can only look on in envy – while they burn the Union Jack with handheld lighters and matches, Northern Ireland’s loyalists construct a towering inferno and cover it in petrol.
But what of the damage, you ask?
Councillor Drew Ritchie, leader of the town’s bonfire committee, says: “I don’t think it would be practical to say there were would be no tyres this year in Ballycraigy.
“We will be re-constituting our committee again in September and we will be working hard to try to ensure that next year, we have a better and safer environment.”
The SDLP’s Thomas Burns says the mountain is extremely dangerous “not only for those in its immediate vicinity but also for the environment”.
By better environment the councillors mean not the removal of Catholics from the Province (at least we think not) but the air.
For reason of global warming, the region’s Stoneyford fire has been replaced by a medieval-style beacon. A certain Mark Harbinson calls this a “genuine attempt to move away from the traditional bonfire”.
Says he: “It’s the only one in Northern Ireland at the moment but I’m hoping the idea will spread in coming years.”
Spread like wildfire and fanned by the Pope who says, via the Mail, that “Protestants aren’t proper Christians”. All branches of Christianity that split with Rome after the Reformation cannot be called churches “in the proper sense”, says Benedict XVI.
Paddy. Proddy, Big Ears. Noddy. Why bother with the pallets and tyres and not just set fire to the churches?
Posted: 11th, July 2007 | In: Back pages Comments (18) | TrackBack | Permalink
