There are several main takeaways emerging from this year’s loyalist commemorative events.

The dangers posed by the unregulated and anarchic nature of the bonfire culture continue to be apparent to all. For the second time in four years, a man tragically lost his life after falling from an 11th Night bonfire, whilst in Greenisland a number of family homes were gutted after being set ablaze by a nearby bonfire.

Video footage showing firefighters frantically working to hose down homes and prevent fire from breaking out across several streets in the Village area of south Belfast exposed the lunacy of what we have for too long accepted as the norm in this society.

Elsewhere, it was revealed the Housing Executive spent up to £1.4 million boarding up houses and cleaning bonfire sites in the past four years, a figure that will have increased significantly once this year’s spend is added.

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A chink of light was apparent in the newly-found determination of the PSNI to address the annual obscenity that is the Moygashel bonfire, which once again targeted black and brown people through its racist bonfire-topping mosque stunt.

Concerns about how loyalists were forewarned as to the PSNI’s intention to seize the bonfire require to be thoroughly investigated.

As Brian Feeney noted in his column in this paper last week, the absence of strong and effective political leadership within unionism over this continues to be a........

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