Why is it okay to burn effigies on Bonfire Night, but on the Eleventh Night it’s classed as hate crime?

Ronan O’Hara: Guessed this was written by Nelson without opening it.

Lea Scullion: I was thinking the same.

Paul McMorrow: Can’t take the opinion of an adult who still thinks the world is 6,000 years old.

Michael Fee: Don’t agree with burning of effigies on bonfires, be it Gerry Adams or Margaret Thatcher. Some people find it funny, but it just fans the flames of hate (no pun intended).

Dee Corry: Was there not a statue stolen from a chapel placed on a bonfire? Do they not burn GAA flags and bunting? They even have SDLP posters on bonfires.

Michael Fee: It’s not all one way. Union flags are burnt on republican bonfires. In my eyes, neither is right. Time it was all stopped. This circle of hate just keeps going round and round.

Colum O Ruairc: Guy Fawkes was hardly republican. That specific bonfire night was to glorify the Protestant domination over Catholics in those days and to celebrate the foiling of the so-called ‘Popery plot’.

Derek Elder: Colum, what ‘Protestant domination’?

Colum O Ruairc: Derek, you need to read some history. Were you not taught about the Glorious Revolution, Cromwellian campaign in Ireland, or the quashing of civil liberties for Catholics between 1691 and 1829? I’d classify that as social, political and religious domination.

Jack Hemsworth: Republicans moralising and trying to take the moral high ground. Simply nauseating.

John Porter: Why not mention the Irish national flag and the Palestinian national flag? Unionist bonfires are a demonstration of xenophobia.