Tent Shun in Ireland

It was inevitable that I'd see something burn before the weekend was over.

But first -- a quick history lesson (and a flawed one at that, because I don't have much time to write).

July 12th is an important date in Northern Ireland (as well as some places in the Republic of Ireland, but this is quite rare) and, at least on paper, appears to be a counter-balance for the green, Guiness fury of March 17th. Towns and cities sprout Union Jacks and the Ulster Flag overnight, while papers and radiowaves are jammed with concerns about public decency, sectarian tensions and whether certain marching routes should be opened up to men in bowler hats and orange sashes.

The reason for this is that July 12th - known as "Orange Day" - commemorates the defeat of James II (a Catholic king) by the Protestant king, William of Orange, at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. And it wasn't just poor James who was cracked on the noggin; this event is credited with establishing the United Kingdom as a Protestant dominion forever more. The organisation that oversees the July 12th celebrations each year, called the Orange Order, is a protestant fraternity named in honour of William's victory.

In short, July 12th is an instant divide between Catholic and Protestant, a hand-on-nose waving "nyah nyah" to those who prefer the colour green.

But that's just one part of it. In light of 20th century Irish political history (formation of the Free State, the Troubles, etc -- sorry, I'm not really here to teach you anything), July 12th has also become an occasion for the Orange Order and its sympathisers to demonstrate that Northern Ireland is still a part of the United Kingdom: completely separate from the Republic of Ireland to the south.

To the outside world, you'd think that Northern Ireland settled its differences with the Good Friday agreement back in 1998. For the most part, the world would be correct, but humans are a stubborn species and we tend to hold onto grudges and consider our differences as a reason for violence. Nowadays most people are talking about the recession and credit crunch, but there are still memories of the past scattered about, waiting like dry kindling for the spark of a divisive political demonstration.

I definitely recommend that you take a tour around Belfast's murals, as this is a visual demonstration of how politically saturated parts of the city still are. Both sides, Protestant and Catholic, have their painted shrines, depicting heroes and martyrs, and it really is breath-taking to see the entire walls of houses covered in symbols and faces. Some of these murals are frozen in time -- their historical and social importance is too great for them to be replaced -- while others are constantly being covered up with new messages.

A recent trend, in an effort to move Belfast away from sectarian violence, is to replace images of masked men holding guns with other cultural icons, such as characters from Celtic legend (though even they are politicised, such as Cúchulainn who I saw depicted as the defender of Protestant Ulster).

But, aside from the murals, you will also see the Peace Line that still stands between the hardcore Catholic and Protestant parts of the city. Unlike Berlin, this wall never came down and its gates are still locked at night, completely sealing off flashpoints where the two sides neighbour one another.

I was brought to one of these spots -- on the Protestant side -- to see the massive towers of wood and tyre being built for their transformation into a bonfire on July 11th, the night before the march of the Orangemen. Such constructs are dotted all over Northern Ireland, and are usually built in circular formations, as if they were forts. Some are also decorated with politically aggressive symbols, such as the Irish tricolour and effigies dressed up as gaelic sportsmen. They are, despite their violent connotations, impressive sights to behold.

All of this build-up was preparing me for what I thought would be a turbulent weekend in Belfast.

But it wasn't to be.

Instead of witnessing city roads melted by rubber firestorms, I was whisked away to Co. Kildare for Oxegen, a four-day music festival. Mary, one of my companions from the camino, happened to have a spare ticket and tentspace with my name on it.

Though I've been camping at festivals in the past, I've never seen anything to the degree of Oxegen. 80,000 people, mostly Irish, were crammed into fields without any concern for the trippy netting of guylines that formed around them. Madness was further guaranteed by the sight of campers trawling in slab after slab of cheap beer.

By the second day I felt like I was in a warzone, or a refugee camp: guard towers stood in vigil over a landscape of haphazard tents, organised around tribal craters of beer cans and ruined camp chairs. Like the growth of mould, it worsened over time and tents were destroyed by the drunken stumblings of thousands; each morning revealed forlorn souls picking through trash heaps to dig out clothing for the day ahead.

My own tent was ruined on the Friday night. Mary and I returned from having seen the Kings of Leon to find its crippled frame sticking out at odd angles, and a gaping hole ripped all the way through its once-water proof side. Luckily, we managed to patch this up by cannibalising a nearby tent, left derelict from the previous night by one of our rowdy neighbours. The tent remained like this, slung up like a war veteran, for the rest of the festival.

Sleep was something people spoke about in hushed whispers, occasionally with a nostalgic tear in their eye. Each day you'd drag yourself out of your tent and hope that the toilets had been pumped clean and restocked with toilet paper (they had, but it was hours ago, and the paper had already been stolen by someone who needed something to throw at the finale of their favourite band's set later that night). With the lack of showers, toothbrushes became the only vital cleaning device -- everything else was a luxury.

Once the morning ordeal was out of the way, you'd stumble into the festival, and it was here that every gripe instantly became redundant.

There are too many highlights to mention, but I'd definitely tip my hat at being able to see the Pogues in a tent filled with thousands of drunk Irish folk. Shane MacGowan commanded the crowd with his drunken drawl and, though no-one understood a word he mumbled, they cheered him on all the same.

For some, the festival was not about the music however, and I returned on the Saturday night to find a wasteland of trash where quite a lot of tents had stood earlier in the day. It turns out that my neighbours, who never slept and did nothing by drink and fight, had wiped out some other campers, who had consequently summoned the police to evict the louts. Though they managed to plead their case and stay on site, they didn't cause as much of a ruckus after that.

Which brings me to the inevitability of a bonfire for me this weekend.

The festival finished on Sunday night, and the majority of the camp decided that they couldn't sleep, instead dedicating themselves to finishing all of that beer (so they wouldn't have to carry it back to the car in the morning). As luck would have it, one of our party left for home early, so he volunteered his tent as a upgrade from our previous, semi-detached wonder. We were finally able to pretend to sleep without the tent touching our heads, though any actual sleep was laughed away by the constant, noisy threat of having a drunkard step on your face as they tripped on a nearby guyline.

By 6am I decided that I couldn't wait any longer, so decided to brave the morning chill to march to through the new bog that surrounded the toilets. A light drizzle had misted the campsite up, and I could still see revellers huddling together in pockets, sharing stories of the weekend that had been.

And that was when I saw that my old tent was on fire.

Burning nylon is a beautiful sight. The plastic continues to spark as it melts away, giving the impression of watching fireworks reflected in a rippling pool. Unfortunately, it also billows toxic smoke into the atmosphere, and hot nylon is a little too effective at removing layers of flesh if you let it get onto your skin.

Though most of our stuff had been moved into the new tent, Mary still had some bits and pieces lying around (fool that she was, trusting in the decency of humans), so she stamped the blaze out in her gumboots. For the most part, we'd caught the fire early enough, because some of her stuff was still salvagable.

Her toothbrush, alas, was not.

It turns out that this is an actual tradition at Oxegen, with many people prefering to set fire to their tents, rather than pack them up. In an effort to stop this, the festival organisers suggested that remaining tents be donated to charity, but given the number of security guards I saw running around with extinguishers, this gesture didn't quite get off the ground.