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The Darker Side of Bonfire Night
As a kid I enjoyed building a bonfire on a few years. I imagine I would have been around 14 at the time although I can't remember exactly. It was good fun and gave us something to do in the early part of the summer. That said, the years our estate had a bonfire, it didn't see anything as revolting as masked gunmen firing live ammunition as happens at some.
Let me be frank - I don't give a fuck what the bitchy childish wastes of space in the UVF and LVF do to each other, in fact if they all killed each other I'd be quite happy to be rid of the scumbags that live like parasites on the backs of their communities.
Belfast City Council are talking about helping out with bonfires and associated celebrations next year in an attempt to bring some order to the chaos that comes with the festivities at the minute. They plan to run a pilot scheme totalling £50,000 of expenditure in order to bring the bonfires under control. The maximum for any site would be £2,500, some of which the council say would have been spent anyway on fencing etc.
Roundabout at Tate's Avenue, Belfast, the day after a bonfire a few hundred yards away. This is right outside people's homes.
This is a step which I cautiously welcome, like the St Patrick's day parade there is an obvious problem which the council seem to want to sort out. The problem is the amount of mess it creates on the streets. Last year's bonfire in the Village left a disgusting charred mess that wasn't cleared up until some private developers moved in to built apartments on the site. This years was down at the Boucher Road near Linfield's Midgely Park training pitches and Olympia Leisure Centre, but there's still an unsightly mess. Even the roundabout at Tate's Avenue, was trashed and left looking a right state and barely passable. The council want to sort out the mess left around the sites (presumably before and after the bonfire) as well as other issues like the burning of tyres, flying of paramilitary flags etc.
Follow up:
"What we wanted to do was try and tackle some of the very serious problems we have had with some of the major bonfire sites. The intention was that this scheme wouldn't be some tokenistic approach by the council, but would actually try to get to the root cause of some of the problems we have been having."
Naomi Long, Alliance Councillor, Belfast City Council
One site chosen was Pitt's Park in east Belfast. It was deliberately chosen because of its controversial nature, but the appearance of gun-toting UVF scumbags "volunteers" making a "show of depravity strength" has jeopardised the council's pilot scheme set to be implemented next year, which is now under review as a result.
So well done. Once again the paramilitaries show their pride in their country and their culture - by depriving their own communities of funding. I suppose at least time they weren't fucking stealing it, but they may as well.