The twelfth is upon us again

downcow

The twelfth holidays and associated community celebrations are about to get going. I realise not everyone in Northern Ireland wishes to take part but why can’t those uninterested not just let those who want to participate get along.

the nationalist politicians and the media outlets have began already to demonise the celebrations. We can all pick holes in most community events in NI and point out inappropriate aspects and things we’d prefer weren’t continued but it seems to be only the unionist celebrations that come under that scrutiny.

here is an example just from this week where nationalists are trying to wind up local unionist young people. These young people have spent months preparing their fire, for it to be wiped out in one sectarian action. The local community will now work to focus the young people’s energy into rebuilding rather that being sucked into the nationalist trap of retaliation.

why can’t those who don’t want to participate not just leave us alone, rather than sneaking into areas in the cover of darkness to carry out their actions of hate?

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/11th-night-bonfire-builders-in-portadown-call-for-calm-heads-and-vow-to-rebuild-3742808

Higgins5473

Why? Because these aren’t festive “celebrations”, these are vitriolic racist and bigoted hate spreading mass events which have no place in any society.

BattleCorp

A Northern Ireland delivery driver used to deliver 5 days a week to where I worked in Newbridge. We'd a normal friendly working relationship, a bit of a chat about the weather, traffic, what's happening at the weekend etc. This had been going on for about 8 or 9 months. We were getting on grand. Then one day I wore a white tee shirt with a blue and white stripe on the shoulder. He asked me if I was wearing it for the holidays (I didn't even notice that it was near the 12th nor did I notice the tee shirt had the Union Jack colours, like why the fcuk would I?). I replied "It's not a holiday where I come from". He never ever spoke to me after that.

c.p.w.g.w

It's Europe's own KKK

tayto lover

Ah the Neanderthals and their bonfires. Is that the time??

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058251524/the-twelfth-is-upon-us-again

The twelfth holidays and associated community celebrations are about to get going.

Holidays? Celebrations? What exactly are you celebrating?

Traditionally, the period around the 12th has seen a mass exodus of people from NI who want to get away from the annual crap-fest inflicted on NI. These people are from both sides of the divide. If it is so much of a holiday, why do all NI people of all colours not want to participate?

I realise not everyone in Northern Ireland wishes to take part but why can’t those uninterested not just let those who want to participate get along.

It is a festival rooted in sectarianism and bigotry. Why would anyone who wants to see an inclusive society want to participate in that kind of activity?

the nationalist politicians and the media outlets have began already to demonise the celebrations.

Proper order! Would you celebrate a KKK festival?

We can all pick holes in most community events in NI and point out inappropriate aspects and things we’d prefer weren’t continued but it seems to be only the unionist celebrations that come under that scrutiny.

What non-unionist celebrations are not put under scrutiny? What non-unionist celebrations that dominate NI society involve sectarianism and bigotry?

here is an example just from this week where nationalists are trying to wind up local unionist young people. These young people have spent months preparing their fire, for it to be wiped out in one sectarian action. The local community will now work to focus the young people’s energy into rebuilding rather that being sucked into the nationalist trap of retaliation.

Did you not read the article? From what I can see, SF have condemned the activity - what do you want them to do?

Sinn Féin described the incident as ‘reckless and irresponsible’ and also called for elected representatives and community leaders to help reduce tensions.

why can’t those who don’t want to participate not just leave us alone, rather than sneaking into areas in the cover of darkness to carry out their actions of hate?

What do you mean sneaking into areas? Are you encouraging a policy of people not being allowed to move about freely? Do unionists really want no-go areas where nationalists are not welcome?

Also, what evidence is there that it was nationalists and not just some random people, possibly teenagers, doing it for kicks?

https://www.newsletter.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/heritage/11th-night-bonfire-builders-in-portadown-call-for-calm-heads-and-vow-to-rebuild-3742808

What is most surprising about that article is that it is filed under Heritage and Retro.

You're blinded by your bigotry or else you're trolling - which is it?

cj maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242009#Comment_119242009

That's a good description.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242102#Comment_119242102

According to a few on Twitter there is a long standing tradition of rival bonfire builders burning each others fires in order to have the biggest one.

Why would anyone stop these people as they make their annual display of bigotry and sectarian taunting? 'Never interrupt your enemy...' etc etc.

El Weirdo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242102#Comment_119242102

Column B. 100%.

growleaves

The celebrations are a kind of military triumphalism.

Most Europeans left that behind them after 1945.

6541

I think the OP is just looking for a internet echo chamber argument. Like why bother posting this nonsense.

Sunny Disposition

The 12th is a really tense time in a lot of the North, I hate it.

Obviously people burning up that bonfire was wrong, it's kind of mildly encouraging that SF condemned it as well as unionists.

A lot of unionists wouldn't really understand it, but the Orange Order is seen as a really hateful organisation by Catholics, and there are genuine reasons for it. Members are prohibited from marrying Catholics or even going to something like a Catholic funeral. Because the North is so dysfunctional and anti-Catholicism is so deeply ingrained, the Orange Order gets something of a pass among Protestants. Mervyn Gibson, it's leader, would be on TV and the radio, even though the organisation is so anti Catholic.

CarProblem

as wind up OPs go this is definitely better than average on this site tbh

growleaves

A daring raid on a bonfire seems more in keeping with the event itself than peaceful observance!

Next time guard the bonfire better maybe?

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058251524/the-twelfth-is-upon-us-again

You do this knowing exactly what's going to follow... pages and pages of the same arguments going around in circles.

What do you get out of it?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242198#Comment_119242198

He simply loves being a victim.

Crocodile Booze

Community Celebrations?

You mean when a bunch of unemployed, inbred, fat drugged-up thugs set fire to some old pallets draped in their Kindergarten-standard banners?

Yay!

ancapailldorcha

They can't ignore it because the Orange Order insists on shoving their hateful bile down Nationalists throats. You know that, Downcow.

maccored

yay - cant wait for the hooligans out looking to bate a taig off the streets! Used to be quare fun getting the **** kicked out of me by a gang of drunken orangemen

bad2thebone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243178#Comment_119243178

Ah yes,those were the days walking down the street after a few pints, getting a hiding from skinheads with union jack t-shirts and doc martens.

Back in those times we took it on the chin,head and rib's. No other choice and you'd be lucky to get a broken rib.

No jobs either, a lot moved down to Shannon in the 70's and 80's. They had their own community on the east side of the town, settled in quite well. They drank in the Shannon Knights bar all you'd hear was northern accents and even the grandkids have northern accents.

https://youtu.be/NGYdSBRr4H4

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243271#Comment_119243271

He sounds like a fella from Monaghan I once ran into.

maccored

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119243325#Comment_119243325

wearing union jacks and docs?

Mrs OBumble

We love the 12th. It's always great to welcome so many visitors from the North, who come on their annual holidays to the republic in the 2nd week of July each year.

votecounts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058251524/the-twelfth-is-upon-us-again

Why do unionists feel the need to burn our national flag on the bonfires, to keep parishioners trapped in churches as they parade loudly banging their drums of hate, why don't they just march in places where they are wanted. Before you deflect, orangemen should exactly their calibre by singing a song about a murdered woman on her honeymoon. Anyone who attends these bonfires with above on top of it is a bigot, end of and in any other state would be charged with a hate crime.

NIMAN

At least the BBC have decided to stop giving it live coverage.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119244823#Comment_119244823

I see GB News are going to take their place 😂

I recall in the 90's Sky News would have the Drumcree march live from outside the church awaiting it all to kick off after the mass.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119244713#Comment_119244713

why don't they just march in places where they are wanted

Where is the fun in that? It is more craic to wind up the dirty Taigs!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242117#Comment_119242117

I know of one 40+ years ago that sure as **** wasn't burned early by a "rival". 🤣

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242117#Comment_119242117

The memorial to soldiers killed at narrowwater hasnt been damaged since one william frazier departed to his ethernal reward.....go figure

Floppybits

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242132#Comment_119242132

Ah ya see the unionists haven't left the 800's yet.

downcow

All so predictable. Pathetic really. Just picking isolated incidents and trying to label weeks of celebration. I could do likewise with any aspect of Irish cultural celebration.

if you believe your inputs are representative of what goes on then I guess your attitudes are understandable - but it says so much more about nationalist prejudice than it does about July celebrations

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245483#Comment_119245483

No issue with your celebrations.

What is predictable is you, the OO and Unionism failing to take responsibility for the 'celebrations' the world sees.

Victimhood rampant again.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245483#Comment_119245483

Cant you be kicked out of orange order for marrying a catholic,but not for murdering one,and most deffo not for singing to celebrate the murder of one??

Crocodile Booze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245483#Comment_119245483

I think you can now see that boards.ie contributors are further along the human evolution journey, than huffing angry red-faced pot-bellied fools, who feel the need to march like a bunch of apes banging stuff and lighting bonfires with silly slogans and effigies.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119244965#Comment_119244965

The desire to be victims number 1 is high. It's nothing but anger from Unionism for a long time now.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245684#Comment_119245684

You love spinning this stuff don’t you

you can be kicked out for all three. But this is same old same old one-sides nonsense.

There were lots of members of the GAA who murdered protestants and mocked the murder of Protestants and I don’t know any that got through out. Same for Sinn Fein. In fact I know loads of shinners who murdered protestants but can’t think of any through out. And also ones who mocked sectarian murder of protestants and weren’t through out

you guys can’t see your hypocrisy for the blindness caused by your prejudice.

square one seems still on the horizon for many of you.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245800#Comment_119245800

You asked for tolerance for Orange bigotry and supremacy, you won't get it as long as they behave as they do. What the GAA, SF, or Martians do, isn't going to change that.

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245483#Comment_119245483

.....did you not just land into the fecking thread highlighting an isolated incident?

One that despite your poor-me-ing is rumoured to have actually been carried out by rival bonfire builders from your own side?

G'way and sh*te with your usual hypocrisy, Downcow. For an isolated incident, it's amazing that not a single year passes without multiple examples of absolutely vile behaviour. Isolated my a*se.

I've seen enough of the Twelfth, 'celebrations' to know it'll never be an event I'd want to bring my children to. You're welcome to it yourself, but your, 'oh such a wonderful and inclusive PG rated celebration' b*llocks fools absolutely no one who's been within a ten mile radius of the marching season.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245800#Comment_119245800

Seems to me,your wee rant hasnt answered a simple yes/no qs

Such a culturally enriching farce,how can a organisation that by its own rules exclude people of one religon get millions in tax payers grant and free policing for its parades....something not adding up here

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245879#Comment_119245879

downcow thinks we don't understand his 'culture'. We and the world understand it totally.

kirk.

Seen a politician up the north wanting something done about the "attack" on a bonfire

Can you actually attack something like a bonfire

It's just an inanimate object isn't it

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245955#Comment_119245955

I'm probably a bit more appreciative of quite a lot of Unionist culture than yourself, Francie.....but even Edward Stevenson himself would struggle to keep a straight face with Downcow's rose tinted glasses.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245975#Comment_119245975

Wrong Fionn, I have worked with many Unionists on cross border projects including a drumming festival featuring the Lambeg.

I have no issue with their culture. This 12th orgy of hate though, needs to be seriously tackled not by the Parades Commission or anyone else but Unionism.

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246012#Comment_119246012

I don't think the 12th is beyond reform, Francie. I just don't think that'll ever happen when Unionists like Downcow try to pretend there's nothing wrong and we're just imagining the sh*t that happens every single year because it is sectarian of us to be opposed to all the effigy burning and sectarian chanting.

Junkyard Tom

Truly Ireland's lumpenproletariat.

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245936#Comment_119245936

Christ almighty! The irony of someone complaining about prejudice against people who enjoy the celebrations of orange parades.

Shield

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119242033#Comment_119242033

Yes. Yes it is. Pray for me.

CrookedJack

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119245483#Comment_119245483

Downcow, stop being coy, this is exactly the reaction you wanted. You specifically posted your opening comment to rile everyone up.

That way you and Francie can have yet another thread where you bounce off each other in the desperate attempt to radicalise us all into one or other of your sides.

It's clear your purpose was to ask for reasons why people do not support the 12th celebrations just so that you could say it was just nationalist prejudice.

I mean, what possible reason could we give that you wouldn't say was nationalist prejudice? Maybe fire safety or the environment?

Fionn1952

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246188#Comment_119246188

Must be delightful for you, Shield.....the hardcore Loyalists calling you PSNIRA while the hardcore Republicans insist you're still basically the RUC.

FrancieBrady

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246189#Comment_119246189

There's more than me that challenge downcow routinely on this site.

downcow

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119246189#Comment_119246189

Nonsense. I wouldn’t expect nationalists to support the twelfth. I simply wish the minority of nationalists who are negatively infatuated with it could just get on with their lives and focus on their own interests over the July celebrations. Let everyone else unionist, nationalist and others just get on with following their own interests and stop thinking the world revolves around Northern Ireland republicans. Don’t attack our fires, don’t agitate at our celebrations, etc, etc.