Loyalists in the village of Moygashel have torched a replica of a mosque, sparking predictable outrage. There’s little question the action was a grotesque, hateful display, and such sentiments represent a real material threat to Muslims, as recent racist pogroms prove.
What the blaze truly shows, however, is a dead-end loyalist culture that will ultimately burn itself out through its own bigotry and parochialism. Its only hope may lie in the embrace of its core tenets by reactionaries beyond the north of Ireland. This is perhaps the punt being taken by the pyromaniacs of the County Tyrone village, and those elsewhere in the Six Counties — the decolonial term for the north of Ireland — this summer.
On July 8, Moygashel Bonfire Association (MBA) gave a glimpse at the crudely constructed representation of the Islamic faith, hidden partially by a sheet. The next day they attempted to defend it on the basis that it was an:
…exercise in our rights under Article 10 of the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights]…
They went on to ramble incoherently about immigration, without clarifying why their opposition to that necessitates inciting violence against an entire faith. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) disagreed on the legality of the display, and arrested a 56-year-old man, who they’ve charged with incitement to hatred. The PSNI claim they were intent on removing the display and holding it as evidence. To prevent that outcome, the creators of the bonfire then chose to set it alight, saying:
Due to confirmation of contractors moving in and removing the bonfire, the decision has been made to light it asap.
Yearly hate-fest shifts from sectarianism to new bigotries
Those celebrating the 12 of July typically light bonfires the night before on 11 July. The yearly festivities represent a ‘culture’ with only its past to look forward to, with sectarian antagonism at its core, commemorating Protestant King William III’s victory over Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. While the sectarian element remains, with revellers still frequently burning the Irish tricolour flag, the focus has shifted more towards other displays of hate.
Moygashel loyalists has gained a reputation for this. Last year the County Tyrone village burned an effigy of refugees in a boat. Recently, the 93% Protestant, and 98% white locale gained notoriety for subjecting its own children to racist and Islamophobic AI-generated slop. Locals put up a banner depicting a group of dark-skinned, seemingly Muslim men attempting to gain access to a children’s playground.
The homogeneity of Moygashel and the idiocy of its output are not a coincidence. This is the inevitable product of loyalism and its stunted, deeply insular ideology. A culture that begins and ends with the following — we like to burn stuff, and we hate anything that deviates from our extremely narrow sense of identity — one that calcified several hundred years ago on the basis of violence and supremacy over others.
These are people trapped in an endless siege mentality, perpetually fearful of the destruction of their ‘culture’. The irony is that the obsessive narrowness of this attempt at self-preservation ultimately dooms it to extinction. Just as the absence of genetic diversity leads to a lack of evolutionary resilience in organisms, so loyalism cannot survive the extreme scarcity of ideas it allows to permeate its Orange membrane.
A monopoly on brutal sectarian violence might have ensured the culture could dominate for centuries, but post-1998, force is no longer the currency that determines outcomes in the north of Ireland. As in peacetime anywhere, brain power matters much more than muscle power. A column in the Herald observed the difference between republicans and loyalists in this regard 26 years ago:
The republicans have swapped their balaclavas for starched suits and a place in government, while most of the loyalist groups are conspicuous only by their struggle for ghetto supremacy. Whether you agree with them or not, their nationalist opponents have at least political republicanism to draw on.
Even inside the Maze, where loyalist and republican prisoners were segregated, the loyalist prisoners indulged in raves, drugs, and weight-training. They built themselves up physically, while their arguments grew flabby. In prison republican libraries were stocked with books on politics and history, the loyalist libraries were stocked with weight-lifting manuals.
This was a contrast often highlighted by Progressive Unionist Party politician David Ervine, who sought to steer loyalism along a more enlightened path until his premature death in 2007 at the age of 53. His journey from Ulster Volunteer Force bomb-maker to socialist peacemaker is a route today’s bonfire builders could benefit from studying.
Loyalists’ insular culture and its inevitable demise
In 2020, the News Letter pointed out that in 2014/15:
…of students entering university in NI [Northern Ireland], 29.5% were Protestant, and 45.3% Catholic…
They went on to say the gap has likely only grown since. Rather than funnelling young Protestants into college lecture halls, loyalist paramilitaries usher them into prison cells, via racist riots. These criminal gangs might be happy enough to convert a generation of youths into fodder for their racketeering.
Other loyalists, however, might want to consider the sustainability of doubling-down on the myopic hatred which started with Catholics as the target, and has now shifted to migrants, people of colour and Muslims. A long, hard look at the link between extreme under-appreciation of alternative perspectives, and extreme underachievement, is long overdue.
Escaping from a cultural ghetto might mean actually embracing what 1,400 years of Islam has given the world. That would include vital contributions to mathematics in centuries past, and today’s capacity for Muslim-majority countries to achieve some of the lowest rates of violent crime in the world.
“Delivering sour grapes from a withering vine”
Reflecting on this might enrich the people of Moygashel more than giant pyres of pallets, and the absurd notion that all two billion adherents to Islam are a combination of Osama Bin Laden, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Jihadi John.
Similarly, recognising that the north of Ireland’s economy depends on migration, particularly in healthcare, might be more useful than sealing yourself in an Ulster-shaped Orange tomb which no one from outside ever wishes to enter.
The outlandish bonfire displays of hate are intended as a show of strength, of defiance. The Moygashel Bonfire Association’s banner reads “Delivering hard truths from solid roots”. “Delivering sour grapes from a withering vine” might be more apt. No one who is actually strong feels compelled to go around announcing it constantly.
The reality is that loyalists’ effigies, like those in the Tyrone village, demonstrate quite the opposite of strength. They highlight a decaying, moribund ‘culture’ gripped by fear. Fear of the migrant, fear of the Muslim, fear, at some reptilian level, of its inability to halt its own hastening demise.
