I was out taking pictures of the bands today, planning on writing a little piece about the twelfth, since last year's got so many hits. Unfortunately, I came home to hear some disgusting and sickening acts had taken place last night in County Antrim.

At a bonfire in Ahoghill, near Ballymena, the tricolour atop the bonfire was decorated with writing mocking the sectarian murder of Michael McIlveen in Ballymena in May. The flag was adorned with the slogan "Fuck Mickybo". It's pathetic and disgusting. No normal person could take any satisfaction from that. I don't have so much of a problem with trying to burn posters of hunger strikers, these guys were paramilitaries after all, but to mock the death of an innocent teenager (who would sooner consider joining the British army than the waste-of-space paramilitaries) is pathetic.

Also in the same night, republicans carried out attacks on Orange Halls, including an arson attack that destroyed the Orange Hall in Lavin, near Armoy and Dunloy (scene of an illegal protest last year). There was also a paint bomb attack on an Orange Hall in Claudy, Co. Londonderry.