So in this terroristic townland, we find that a gross crime is committed every year: the bonfire for Eleventh Night, commemorating (better to say celebrating) a key battle in the invasion of Ireland. Stacks of material up to 60 meters high are lit on fire, constituting a multiple crime, being at once a threat to the native population, a very concrete act of environmental damage, and a risk to human life and local infrastructure generally. Should we expect that these overlapping crimes might necessitate that the security apparatus get involved? Well the RUC decided this year not to remove a bonfire built on a site containing asbestos, next to the power supply for two major hospitals, a decision that “involved carefully balancing potentially competing statutory and human rights obligations”. The colonial courts have previously backed up constabulary decisions not to intervene in such cases, where public disorder is feared if the settlers’ Criminality is interrupted.

This core part of setter culture is unchallengeable in the eyes of all Partitionists. The political, media and security elites of the Occupation enable the narrative, supported by West Brits south of the Border, that these bonfires are an unquestionable and even inspirational act of human achievement, much like Riverdance, Bulgarian folk singing, or Persian miniatures. “Every year Moygashel bonfire combines artistic protest with their cultural celebration” gushed one Settler Supremacist. Another—the head of policing in the Six Counties—said that these displays are a “valued part of Northern Ireland’s local history and culture, and I recognise the deep sense of identity these events represent for many people”.

Let us be clear: the bonfires are multiply illegal even in the corrupted colonial context: they are public acts of impunity motivated by a desire to remind everyone that the settlers have not relinquished and will not relinquish their right to subjugate the people whose land they are occupying. After all, the threat to Irish people is not only implicit in the existence of the bonfires, but also made explicit in the Irish effigies burnt, the tricolours burnt, the slogans draped on the pallets.

This year, the residents of Moygashel decided to extend their racism—in the wake of pogroms against People of Colour in the Occupied Territories—to the desperate and brave people who attempt to reach Britain (not Ireland, in fact) in small boats. They creatively had several effigies, painted as People of Colour, with life jackets, sitting in a boat balanced on top of their celebrated and valued bonfire, along with the slogans Stop the Boats and Veterans before Refugees. Finally, the Liberal Right found they had to say something.