Larne Craigyhill bonfire: 17000 pallets (2021)

https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/larne-craigyhill-bonfire-more-17000-20989400

by daverol • 3 years ago

23 55 3 years ago

belfastlive.co.uk

ggm3• 3 years ago

A hugely divisive protestant celebration of the occupation and ascendency of England over Ireland in 1690.

It's an impressive bonfire. It celebrates sectarianism. Not unlike November 11 it's got unpleasant overtones.

I wonder what level of fire safety distancing they do, and how it scales linearly or non linearly to size. I could believe this size of fire would loft burning materials for miles and affect air quality, as well as the environment. It's industrial pallets often.

thesaintlives• 3 years ago

We English love Guy Fawkes. What you on about? Let people have their fun!

pringk023• 3 years ago

Guy Fawkes night is on the 5th.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleventh_Night

ggm3• 3 years ago

You go right ahead and blow your fingers off. (Terry Pratchett's footnote about being allowed to light one firework carefully from 15 feet away with a long stick comes to mind)

HeckFeck8• 3 years ago

Historically the Catholic church and Cathloc monarchs did make claims and undertook actions that threatened the security and freedom of Protestants, and the Irish Republic made claims over the North that Protestants saw as a threat, so the bonfires and parades with their positive self assertion can be understood in this context.

That said, I think we can all condemn oblique hatred of the other side, and that's very much present in both sides.

unmole• 3 years ago

When was the last time a Catholic monarch threatened Northern Ireland? And How many divisions has the Pope?

elfbargpt• 3 years ago

I ended up going to Belfast the weekend of the bonfires without knowing it existed beforehand--was a totally surreal experience. The largest man-made fires I'd ever seen right in the middle of the city streets, armored cars driving around, not many safety protocols. Kids were drinking buckfast and climbing to the top of skinny stacks that had to be over 100 feet tall.

I would definitely recommend checking it out to anyone that can.

Some pictures I just googled: https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/eleventh-night.html?sortBy...

pringk023• 3 years ago

My Dad grew up in Belfast during the troubles, and was raised protestant. It's always been really interesting to me to hear his perspective on stuff like this, as he is always sort of amazed by how normalised things like putting effegies of the pope on these was back then. And how he never really thought about it until he moved, not exactly far, to Edinburgh and understood that Belfast was a place very different to most of the world at the time.

He talks often about how you would have photos of the Mayor of Belfast shaking hands with loyalist leaders infront of one of these bonfires with the effigy of the Pope in the background and it would be seen as a good thing, a positive PR moment for the mayor.

pringk023• 3 years ago

It's still not dead obviously, but less publicly endorsed.

Here's some from just last year with images of the pope, the palestinian flag (there's an undercurrent of NI Republican solidarity with Palestine), and the tricolour: https://www.irishnews.com/news/northernirelandnews/2022/07/1...

arethuza• 3 years ago

Edinburgh isn't, or at least wasn't, completely free of sectarian problems (obviously not as bad as NI) - we used to live close to the Hibs ground on Easter Road and when Rangers visited it wasn't exactly a pleasant atmosphere. Mind you - that was 25+ years ago!

smcl2• 3 years ago

I don't think it's ever going away. Rangers just announced their away shirt for next season (blue and orange stripes) and you had a weird situation with rangers fans both feigning innocence "why are you so offended by a colour?" in one thread and giggling about how having an orange kit will wind up the Celtic supporters in another.

trilbyglens• 3 years ago

Isn't the pope burning still pretty common throughout england?

pmyteh• 3 years ago

No. The standard bonfire topper is Guy Fawkes or nothing. There are a handful of places that go for the pope (Lewes perhaps?) but anti-Catholicism is much weaker than it used to be in England.

disambiguation• 3 years ago

The biggest fire the North has ever seen!

Here it is burning up in 2021: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2i6xpWmh-Q

ycombinete• 3 years ago

I cannot believe that’s how they light it.

Toutouxc5• 3 years ago

Call me new-fashioned, but this crap should not be legal. I get cars, I get people heating their homes with wood, I get burning coal for electricity, but this is just a middle finger to the environment and a huge waste of energy (approximately 1.8 GWh).

HeckFeck8• 3 years ago

If the locals wish to spend their resources in this way, that's for them to decide, not you. It isn't a waste if it is valued by someone who pays for it.

thepaulmcbride3• 3 years ago

Rarely are all of the things burnt paid for. A lot of the pallets etc are stolen from local businesses.

Toutouxc5• 3 years ago

It’s a good thing then that they also completely cover the externalities and burn it in an airtight dome. Wait, they don’t? So maybe it does concern me after all.

Xylakant2• 3 years ago

How many people drive their car for leisure? Motorsports? Riding motorcycles for fun? Using high powered GPUs for gaming? That’s all just burning energy for fun. In your words, a middle finger to the environment. Should that all be forbidden?

OfSanguineFire• 3 years ago

How many people drive their car for leisure?

Probably much fewer than in generations past. There is frequent reportage that in the USA, the car is no longer so regarded as a symbol of personal freedom. And in many countries, petrol is expensive and heavily taxed with some effect on discouraging usage.

Toutouxc5• 3 years ago

Definitely not forbidden, just heavily taxed or conducted in a way that doesn’t [disproportionately] harm the environment. If your gaming rig runs off renewables and you ride an electric motorcycle, be my guest.

I mean, I don’t want to be a dick, I don’t care if someone drives a few kilometers more on their way from work because it’s nicer there, after all, there ARE private yachts that burn the same amount of fuel every twenty meters, and I don’t think that a few rally stages or a few laps around Spa is what finally kills the planet, but there’s something about setting 400 tons of wood on fire for “big flamey thing nice” that pisses me off way more than people riding motorcycles. Way more of that middle finger energy.

bluescrn• 3 years ago

Until private jets and superyachts are banned, it seems wrong to complain about this.

It’s very wasteful, but I’m assuming it’ll ‘entertain’ a large number of people, at least.

And it’s nothing compared to the waste and environmental damage of warfare, another global problem we still face.

0xbadc0de5• 3 years ago

fwiw - wood burning does not contribute to net CO2 increase because wood is part of the closed loop cycle, unlike fossil fuels such as coal or oil. It's not terribly efficient, and seems a bit wasteful, but from an environmental perspective, that wood is net zero.

chrisjb• 3 years ago

Logistics professionals hate them, learn how to destroy 3/4 of a million dollars using this one weird trick.

appleflaxen• 3 years ago

The article quotes the price at 20k

sokoloff• 3 years ago

Are you inclined to believe that a pallet is worth less than £1.18?

I’m not an expert in the pallet supply chain, but that seems extraordinarily low to me.

Simon_O_Rourke• 3 years ago

Attempts to normalize this as some kind of folksy traditional community bonfire thing requires such levels of misdirection and sleight of a hand that they'd be better off doing magic shows in Vegas. These kinds of events are purely and simply displays of racist and sectarian hate - no different from burning crosses in Alabama.

The effigies of the Pope are the more friendly of the things burned on these bonfires, the less palatable include Irish and Basque flags for whatever reason, slogans exhorting genocide, and even pictures of previous sectarian murder victims [1][2].

It's a thoroughly vile event that happens each year, wrapped up in some false sense of "culture".

[1] https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/sectarian-bo...

[2] https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/pol...

AnnikaL• 3 years ago

This is from 2021.

dang• 3 years ago

Added. Thanks!

Dylan13122• 3 years ago

For anyone interested in learning more, VICE did a decent documentary back in 2012 where they visit Belfast and speak to some of the people involved at a different bonfire site.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nzDuiv3U8o

azubinski• 3 years ago

It’s even a little pity that this wild senselessness was so rushed.

After all, it was possible to time such a large symbolic burning of logistics for the Elbakyan's EFF award.

Because The Absurdity must be brought to the limit.

cafard• 3 years ago

Apart from anything else, do you really want to be around burning pallets? Who knows what kind of chemicals have been used on them? I used to see pallets set out free for the taking, and never ever considered using them in a fireplace.

Larne Craigyhill bonfire: 17000 pallets (2021)

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