Eleventh Night (Northern Ireland)

In Northern Ireland, the Eleventh Night or 11th Night, also known as "bonfire night", is the night before the Twelfth of July, an Ulster Protestant celebration. On this night, towering bonfires are lit in Protestant loyalist neighbourhoods, and are often accompanied by street parties and loyalist marching bands. The bonfires are mostly made of wooden pallets and locally collected wood. They originally celebrated the Williamite conquest of the 1690s, which began the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland and has been maintained by the Protestant community. Eleventh Night events are often held in the spirit of sectarianism or ethnic hatred against Irish Catholics, Irish nationalists, and Irish people broadly, such as the burning of Irish tricolours, and for damage and pollution caused. Some are controlled by loyalist paramilitaries, and authorities may be wary of taking action against controversial bonfires. In 2021, there were about 250 Eleventh Night bonfires.