'Twelfth Night' is a Shakespeare Play...

Tonight is the eleventh night – I’m sure many of you from foreign lands won’t understand the significance of this, but perhaps when I say ‘the 12th of July’ you might understand more of my meaning.

For those of you who don’t – every year on July 12th, the Orange Order commemorate the victory of King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne by marching with bands and full regalia. Sounds harmless enough, but it creates major agro between the Republican and Loyalist communities, not just over the routes of the parade, but also the noise they make, and the general offence they are believed to cause.

Almost more interesting than the unashamed (and mainly drunken) revelry of the twelfth, is the eleventh night. Loyalists gather old sofas, wooden palettes and other general waste, pile them up sky high, and set them alight in confined housing estates. They sometimes burn effigies of the Pope or other anti-Catholic sentiments, and they will happily stay awake all night prancing around the giant fire. There is something wholly tribal about the whole affair.

As I type this I can hear the pipe bands playing some 2 miles away, and in the morning I will find the ash of a nights revelry on my window pane.

I hope that, regardless of your religion or side of the Northern Irish political divide, that your eleventh night, and July 12th are as trouble-free as possible.