Lest anyone doubt the craven nature of the Partitionist elite, the West Brit Times ran an article (unseen by the present writer, who preserves his sanity by avoiding the paper), but helpfully and inevitably summarised in its politics podcast (into which your correspondent dips only to gather material for his Letters). The man who may be the biggest apologist for English Imperialism in a podcast crowded with Collaborators, chose as his article of the week a contribution from a new plantation correspondent. He explains:

She talks about a recent study she carried out at Queen’s on the role of the social connection, she says, to protect the mental health among adolescent males in Belfast of these bonfires, and she talks of Protestant Loyalist young men describing to her the unexpected aspects of bonfires, which support cohesion in their communities and how older boys would train younger boys in, you know, how to, she says, gather bonfire materials, which I think means kind of steal pallets and things like this, while imparting knowledge of the building techniques, and they said they took pride in becoming mentors and providing guidance for, for the young ones, and she talked about boys and young men staying out all night to guard the wood, to protect bonfires from theft or sabotage, she also points out [laughing] that Catholics would, would, would come and try to burn their bonfire but other Protestant groups would come and try to steal their pallets […] parents supply dinners and older people bring baked goods and juice to help the boys pass the night, night-watch, anyway it was an element of the whole bonfire culture which is obviously in some respects deeply problematic but, it was an element that hadn’t occurred to me before and I learnt something by reading it, so…[trails off]

Here we have the elite willingly selling mass criminality as male bonding. Thank god for the bravery of this paper in showing how criminal gangs support social cohesion amongst settler supremacists! Next up: how to combine Ku Klux Klan membership with a vegan diet! The perfect combination for this toxic moment in history!

The presenter did not even have the courage to really sell the piece, and in fact Macdara has edited out the signs of his hesitation, the filler vocal content that no Irish Times correspondent has trained themselves out of, as they have failed to train themselves not to rely on in relation to, which is sometimes used more than once in a single sentence. We are meant to believe this astonishing apologia for settler terrorism has value as a Learning Piece, something to really make you think. To finish up with this horrible episode: Dublin journalists think they will never have to have anything to do with Loyalists, so they promote them even at their very worst. When we have Reunification, there will be a crisis in the Elite, as they find themselves struggling to oppose the most reprehensible people in the State. This is of course reason enough to welcome Reunification.

***

Of course the most senior Supremacist had to have her say in the most lamentable matter of the bonfires: the unelected Deputy First Minister—squatting in a seat presented to her by a man currently facing the most heinous of charges, even though she had not even run in that election—has predictably played politics while accusing others of playing politics, handsomely paying tribute to “to all those working hard on the ground to resolve any remaining issues, including the local bonfire builders”. Amusingly, she said that “For hundreds of years, lighting of bonfires and similar type things have been used in commemoration and celebration”: in fact bonfires have been lit for thousands or tens of thousands of years, but as a settler she is only capable of thinking of the last few hundred years; nothing existed before the invention of her culture.