Eleventh Night
July 11, Thursday
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, large 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. They originally celebrated the Williamite conquest of the 1690s, which began the Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. Eleventh Night events are regularly condemned for sectarianism or ethnic hatred against Irish Catholics and Irish nationalists, 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. Not all bonfires are controversial however, and there have been attempts to de-politicize some bonfires and make them more family-friendly and environmentally-friendly. In 2021, there were about 250 Eleventh Night bonfires.