Season: Drums, banners & bonfires

Since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement ended decades of conflict in Northern Ireland, the political landscape has shifted dramatically. For many within the loyalist community, committed to maintaining union with the United Kingdom, peace has brought uncertainty alongside stability. The certainties that once underpinned loyalist identity — political dominance, demographic confidence, and secure British sovereignty — feel less assured. Generational change, shifting electoral balances, and the ambiguities intensified by Brexit have heightened anxieties about belonging, territory, and the Union’s future. In this context, public ritual has taken on renewed importance. This work documents life within working-class loyalist communities during the annual cycle of the 12th of July celebrations, known as “the Twelfth,” and the weeks leading up to them. Commemorating the 1690 Battle of the Boyne, when William of Orange defeated James II, the Twelfth remains central to loyalist and unionist identity. Each year it is marked by parades, bonfires, and large public gatherings across Northern Ireland. Produced over several years through repeated visits, the project moves beyond spectacle to focus on preparation and process. In the weeks before the Twelfth, neighbourhoods transform. Towering bonfires built from wooden pallets rise in residential streets and on vacant ground. Flute bands rehearse in car parks and housing estates. Flags are erected, murals refreshed, and routes prepared. Communal labour and anticipation shape daily life. The photographs trace this build-up of effort. They observe not only the night of 11 July, when bonfires are lit, but also the quieter acts of building, waiting, and gathering that precede it. Returning to the same communities over time situates the Twelfth within a broader seasonal rhythm rather than as a single annual event. The celebrations remain contested. Bonfires are often adorned with placards, slogans, and effigies depicting nationalist politicians, Catholic symbols, and sometimes migrants or minority groups, which are burned publicly. While participants describe these gestures as expressions of tradition or identity, many nationalists experience them as provocative or exclusionary. Similarly, marches near nationalist areas are defended as cultural heritage but perceived by others as assertions of territorial dominance. Within this charged environment, the bonfire, parade, flag, and mural function as reaffirmations of presence as much as commemorations of history. The labour invested in constructing these structures reflects a determination to assert continuity amid political and demographic change. Rather than resolving competing narratives, this work holds them in tension, examining how identity is performed and defended in everyday space. More than two decades after the peace agreement, Northern Ireland continues to negotiate its future while carrying the weight of its past.

A man walks past a loyalist mural referencing the presence of the UDA paramilitary group on Newtownards Road, a predominantly Protestant and loyalist neighbourhood in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, on November 27, 2017.

Members of loyalist marching flute bands take part in a march commemorating the Battle of the Somme across East Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 1, 2021.

A local boy from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, burns cardboard at a site used to build the large wooden pallet bonfire for the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 25, 2021.

Youth from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, help unload a truck delivering pallets for a traditional bonfire to be set alight during the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 26, 2021.

Local children and young men from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, during the building of the large wooden pallet bonfire to be set alight for the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 26, 2021.

Local boys from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, burn rubbish at a site used to build the large wooden pallet bonfire to be set alight during the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 25, 2021.

A local boy from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, burns cardboard at a site used to build the large wooden pallet bonfire for the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 25, 2021.

A boy plays on a trampoline beside a stack of wooden pallets at a derelict site in Sandy Row, a predominantly Protestant and loyalist working-class community in south Belfast, on June 5, 2021. The pallets are intended for a bonfire built by local youths as part of the Twelfth of July celebrations, held by the Protestant community to commemorate the victory of William of Orange over the Catholic King James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.

A junior member of the Young Conquerors South Belfast Flute Band practices outside his house in Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 9, 2021.

Members of the South Belfast Young Conquerors Flute Band during practice in Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, Northern Ireland, on May 13, 2021.

Locals set up a street party celebrating the coronation of King Charles III in Donegall Pass, a loyalist neighbourhood in central Belfast, Northern Ireland, on May 6, 2023.

Orangemen line up to watch loyalist marching flute bands parade through South Belfast on July 2, 2021, to mark the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme.

Paramilitary icons can be seen in a local bar in Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 4, 2021.

Members of loyalist marching flute bands take part in a march commemorating the Battle of the Somme across East Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 1, 2021.

Local children and young men from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, during the building of the large wooden pallet bonfire to be set alight for the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 26, 2021.

Local boys from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, burn rubbish at a site used to build the large wooden pallet bonfire to be set alight during the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on June 25, 2021.

Young men from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, can be seen at dusk building a bonfire for the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 9, 2021.

Young men from Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, keep watch through the night over the local bonfire being built for the Twelfth of July celebrations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 9, 2021.

A youth throws empty canisters toward a burning bonfire during the Twelfth of July celebrations in Donegall Pass, a predominantly working-class loyalist community in inner-city Belfast, Northern Ireland, on July 12, 2021.

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