Religion: NI sectarianism: Bonfires of the Vanities burn in Northern Ireland today

It's the annual season of marching for the Protestants of Northern Ireland ("Norn Iron," as pronounced there), and the season of bonfires too.

Protestants lit huge bonfires across Northern Ireland on Tuesday ahead of a day of parades to mark historic victories over Roman Catholics -- in one of the most tense atmospheres in the province for years.

Internal feuding among Protestant "loyalists" who support the province's ties to Britain, and an attack on a Catholic home in Belfast at the weekend have heightened tensions ahead of the "Twelfth," the peak of Northern Ireland's summer marching season.

In a Protestant area of East Belfast, hundreds cheered as a 15 meter high tower topped by an Irish flag and banners of rival pro-British factions was set alight.

In the Reuters report online, from the semiotics of the scene described one gets the impression that the burners were happy not just to see go up in flames the IRA cause which has sawt violently for decades to forcibly join the Northern counties to the Irish Republic to the south, but also that the burners would relish seeing themselves, their own factions, afire and burned to ashes as well. As if to say: Let's all just go to Hell together. Yet, that described bonfire-moment in East Belfast is a more ambiguous one once its psychic depths are more fully penetrated: it could at one and the same time indicate a communal death wish of those so celebrating, but also a deep unspoken desire to see things over and done with, and their own factions, gone once and for all, mere ashes to poke around in once a year for some esoteric indicator of a possible edifying meaning.

From a distance, one can't help asking: Is there no other way to retain communal identity than with marches that move as close as possible to the population centers of the other community, or even demand to parade thru that alien and despised community? Is there no way of remembrance even of the victory of William of Orange over the Catholic King James II, which is commemorated every July 12 by "the Prods" (as many call themselves), when the former beat the latter at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690? Surely, there are other ways to be thankful for the resulting bond that made all of Ireland part of the United Kingdom, the British Island and the Irish Island separated only by the Irish Sea and united by a single Crown.

Still, one can't hope for these shifts on the one side, without noticing some shifts on the other side, the Catholic side. One, at a great distance with the whole Atlantic Ocean in-between, can't hope for the sudden erasure of the stored-up traumas in the Prod psyches, and resulting mass psyche, as a result of IRA bombing, killing, and now massive crime attacks on banks and other institutions, most of all the terrified individuals subjected to these mean means yet again. Some say that both sides have devolved from any political pretenses that gave for a while a certain respectability to "terrorists vs the Prods" and "counter-terrorists vs the Catholic terrorists;" now many look at the remaining activists and the new generation trying to fill their shoes, as merely serious sadistic criminals. The Prods of Northern Ireland can do better than this, I'm sure. - Owlb

UPDATE: Toronto's historic Belfast connection from an article in Wikipedia

The Irish potato famine of 1846–1849 brought a large numbers of Irish into the city. Protestant Irish immigrants were generally welcomed by the existing Scottish and English population, and soon occupied important positions in business, education and politics. The Orange Order became a dominant force in Toronto society, so much so that the 1920s Toronto was called the "Belfast of Canada", and the order's influence only diminished in the 1940s. [2] In contrast, Irish Catholics arriving in Toronto faced widespread intolerance and severe discrimination, both social and legislative. The Irish population essentially defined the Catholic population until 1890, when German and French Catholics were welcomed to the city by the Irish, but the Irish proportion still remained 90% of the Catholic population. However, various powerful initiatives such as the foundation of St. Michael's College in 1852 (where Marshall McLuhan was to hold the chair of English until his death in 1980), three hospitals, and the most significant charitable organization in the city (The Society of St. Vincent de Paul) by Irish Catholic groups strengthened the Irish identity, transforming the Irish presence in the city into one of influence and power.

A young intellectual in the heat, before the 12th and after