Marching Season in Belfast

It's marching season in Northern Ireland at the moment, with various parades taking place across the country culminating in a huge parade and celebration on the Twelfth of July.

Bonfire Night
In the days leading up to the Twelfth huge structures are made out of pallets and timber which are then decorated with flags and banners. I walked past this one on the way to work everyday, and there were even bigger towers in other parts of the city:

On the night of the Eleventh the structures are torched amidst music, drinking and general celebrations. We weren't sure if it was a good idea to go along to one of the bonfires, we'd heard from some people that things could get a bit out of hand. Karim, Owen and I decided to take the chance, but it was a little bit worrying when the first people that we came across on the street yelled out to us "what are you, Catholic or Protestant?" I shouted back "the same as you" which is always the correct response in such a situation. Hearing my accent they came over to talk to us and turned out to be nice (and also drunk). They advised that if anyone else asked we should say we were Protestant.

The rest of our walk was uneventful as we went to meet up with some of Karim's friends before going on to the bonfire. They were nice but spoke French most of the time which meant I didn't have many conversations with them, although that didn't really matter once we got to the bonfire:

After the bonfire we all headed into town. There was a strong police presence, with lots of armoured police trucks driving around but everyone seemed fine and we didn't see any signs of trouble at all, which is always a good thing.

Twelfth of July
The huge parade on the Twelfth went for hours, with thousands of people lining the streets to watch the Orange Order marching through the city. Owen and I went to check it out but didn't stay for the whole thing.

If you would like to see more photos, check out my flickr page.