FROM BELFAST

“OH, IT’S A MASSIVE phallus! No doubt.”

So says Dr Moira Olive-Grove, an international sexual psychologist, about the enormous record-breaking July Twelfth bonfire that has been erected in Craigyhill, Co Antrim. “And when they set fire to it, it will pour forth flame into their community in ceremony of re-invigoration that reminds one of ancient Celtic practices before the arrival of Christianity to these shores. Of course, the end result is always collapse. The spent lover thing. Or the spent force. Take your pick.”

Dr Olive-Grove says that Loyalist bonfires have been growing over the decades in exact proportion to the decline in Unionist power in Northern Ireland. “It’s measurable,” she insists. “We have photographs of Twelfth bonfires dating back to the 1980s. They’re big, but the real upward trend has yet to appear. The first noticeable extensions arrive soon after the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. Then there’s a pregnant pause, so to speak, until the ceasefires of 1994, and the furious Drumcree protests, when the bonfires receive further enhancement. And, of course, once the Good Friday Agreement has bedded down, and Unionism realizes what it’s signed up to, that’s when you really see the bonfires take off. Political Viagra, perhaps?: Anyway, up and up they go.

“The odd thing, as I have indicated, is how very Irish it all is; the whole wicker-like aspect. It’s so ancient Gaelic. If they wanted to prove they were Irish, they couldn’t do better than build large phallic bonfires and set fire to them mid-summer. Strange, given their professed loyalties. Perhaps something deep inside is moving.

“The way we see it is that they appear to be attempting to thrust their bonfire willy into Loyalism, to perhaps create a new god-like champion, a new King Billy. The old one has not been performing well in that role recently, metaphorically, so to speak. Frankly, it’s all so psycho-sexual it would take an army of analysts to decipher all the hidden meanings. But the phallus structures, the multi-colored bunting and parades. Gay as, I’d say.”