In a tradition dating back more than 300 years, towering pyres have been lit every July in Northern Ireland to mark the Battle of the Boyne, which effectively cemented Protestant rule.
They’re held in loyalist neighborhoods – communities that strongly support the union with the United Kingdom – and often carry a political message, with effigies of the pope, the Republic of Ireland’s flag and other symbols of Catholicism and Irish nationalism being burned in the past.
But this year, in the village of Moygashel, County Tyrone, the flames found a new target.
A replica mosque, with a figure holding what appeared to be an ISIS flag and banners on the tower reading “Secure our borders” and “End the threat of radical Islam,” was burned on Thursday night.
The group responsible, the Mogyashel Bonfire Association, said it was aware their display might “shock offend or outrage others” and blamed “uncontrolled illegal mass immigration” for their “protest.”
It marked a further departure from the traditional Eleventh Night bonfires, lit in mainly working-class Protestant neighborhoods on the eve of parades celebrating King William III’s 1690 victory over the Catholic King James II.
The bonfires are the centerpiece of the loyalist calendar , underlining an identity built on being British. Many loyalists insist they carry no politics at all and claim the pallet towers are a cultural and cherished expression of heritage. But many Catholic and republican neighbors have long felt them intimidating.
In Moygashel, police are treating the display as a “hate motivated crime,” and have charged a 56-year-old man with incitement to hatred. The man denied the charges at a hearing on Friday, and was refused bail.
“Had the bonfire not been lit, police would have secured the site and removed the offending material and seized it as evidence,” Police Service of Northern Ireland Chief Superintendent Norman Haslett said in a statement. “Hate crime has no place in our society and will not be tolerated.”
The fire comes as anti-Muslim hate crimes rise across Northern Ireland and the wider UK. Last month, anti-immigrant protesters clashed with police during riots across the capital Belfast, which saw homes and vehicles torched and authorities deploy water cannons.
Race hate crime in Northern Ireland has reached its highest level since records began in 2004, according to Amnesty International, which called the Moygashel display “a blatant attempt to stir up anti-Muslim hatred and intimidate local families.” Allowing such spectacles to go ahead has helped normalize racism in Northern Ireland, the human rights organization added.
The pattern extends to the rest of the UK. An average of four to five anti-Muslim incidents were reported every week in June alone, with more than 40% of them arson or firebombing attacks, according to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), a representative body for the Muslim community in the UK.
For Naomi Green, MCB assistant secretary general, who lives in Northern Ireland, this week’s incident is not a surprise.
“People are welcome to celebrate their culture in whatever way they want,” she said. The problem, she added, was growing “expressions of hate” and “incitement against certain groups.”
Last year, the same Moygashel pyre burned an effigy of migrants in a boat. The figures in the boat represented people of color, with one appearing to be dressed in Islamic attire.
“I felt physically sick,” she said of the 2025 display, noting that that same group has been selling badges from the bonfire since. “There’s not been any action taken… and that’s kind of enabled this year,” she said.
This week’s incident has drawn widespread condemnation. The Church of Ireland and Catholic archbishops issued a rare joint statement Thursday, calling it “grossly offensive.” Britain’s Northern Ireland Secretary, Hilary Benn, called it a “sickening and cowardly act of intimidation.”
Researchers and human rights monitors have described a region where the old architecture of sectarian hostility has not disappeared but been repurposed: Sectarian violence has given way to racially motivated violence.
The Moygashel Bonfire Association defended the display as “lawful protected expression” and “political protest,” saying that its opposition “is not to people, but rather to ideology and Government policy.”
Green said that better leadership and responsible conversations are needed.
“We have politicians come on the radio, talk about alien cultures, talk about barbaric groups of people, as if the Muslims in Northern Ireland are all beheading people, introducing Sharia law, marrying children. That’s not who we are,” she said.
In addition to the anti-migrant rioting that swept parts of Belfast in June, last summer saw similar riots that led to buildings housing migrants being attacked and burned.
“A lot of the rhetoric around that was Muslims, and this conflation of Muslims as migrants, as illegals. You know, it’s all kind of collapsed into one category, even though Muslims are part of the society here,” Green said.
