There has been widespread condemnation of a bonfire based in the Bogside area of Londonderry and rightly so.
The names of PSNI officers Ronan Kerr and Stephen Carroll as well as prison officers David Black and Adrian Ismay were placed on two banners to be burned. They had all been killed because of their profession by cavemen republicans stuck in a time warp using the cover of a “war” to justify their criminality and drug dealing.
Among other items the bonfire featured was Union flags, British Army flags, Israeli flags, a Donald Trump election sign and one of the saddest sights in recent times the bonfire had poppy wreaths which had been stolen from the city’s cenotaph on the 3rd of July 2018, 2 short days after being laid to remember the sacrifice both Protestant and Catholic, unionist and nationalist – made in the trenches stretching across northern France for our very freedom they take for granted today.
Hundreds gathered to watch the bonfire be set alight. Fire crews had to be dispatched to contain the blaze from spreading to nearby buildings which at one point had been 10 to 15 metres away. Police also came under attack by petrol bombs during the bonfire. Last week a sign mocking the death of the father of a victims’ campaigner who was killed by the IRA in 1975 was also placed on a Republican bonfire in Newry, County Down.
Is this 1969? 1972? 1990? No, its 2018. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.
