OPINION: The most polluting event of the year?

For as long as we can tell, on June 24 or thereabouts, the sky above almost every part of pre-Christian Ireland reflected light from fires lit in celebration of the summer solstice.
In the fourth century, the early church, in an attempt to find harmony and make new teachings more acceptable to the pagan majority, adopted many ancient celebrations and bestowed them with new titles. Among these was St John’s Eve, June 23, which purportedly brought to prominence the birth of John the Baptist.
While the name of various festivities was changed the nature of them remained the same, in this case with traditional communal bonfires accompanied by much merrymaking.
Among the fire-related customs that prevailed until more recent times were the leaping through the flames by young men eager to display their virility and the driving of cattle through the dying fire, which was considered to bring health and fortune to the animals and their owners. Both practices can be traced to ancient times.
It was also common for landowners to sprinkle ashes from the sacred fire onto fields, in the hope this would improve fertility. Likewise, homeowners might take a burning ember to light their own hearth and in this way bring peace to their household for the coming year.
Perhaps some of these rituals remain alive, even though the original connection to pagan worship has been forgotten.
Unfortunately, in recent times, other customs have become broadly practised, in that the fires of St John’s Eve have been widely used to dispose of troublesome waste. These celebratory fires have become what is likely the most polluting event of the entire year, with scrap tyres, dead mattresses, silage plastic, waste oil and treated wood all common ingredients in a good blaze.
Examining just one of these, treated timber as commonly used in construction, we can only begin to understand the hazards associated with irresponsible burning.
Construction timber has long been treated to prevent both decay and attack from insects. Some of the chemicals used might include arsenic, chromium, or copper, all of which are highly toxic when burned.
Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) was widely used to treat construction timber in this country until very recently. When fresh, such timber has a greenish hue and is easily recognised. While this fades over time, the potential for the fumes emitted when this is burned to cause serious harm does not.
Even the ash left when CCA timber is burned is highly toxic. Far from bestowing good health upon the cattle that must graze fields contaminated with such ash, bonfires that contribute to this kind of pollution do landowners a great disservice.
We haven’t even started on the dangers associated with burning plastics of various types.
Continuing to throw difficult-to-dispose of waste onto bonfires shows what we really think of current environmental degradation.
Do we want the life we hand to our children and grandchildren to be sullied by persistently harmful chemicals? Are we trusting the self-cleaning and self-righting mechanisms implicit in nature to rectify our wrongs and repair the damage we do, as if these mechanisms cannot be broken?
For those professing belief in a creator, what regard does such behaviour show for creation? And for those who don’t, how wise a thing is it to hasten our own demise?
As for the man people refer to as Saint John, what would he have to say, were he to see the damage wrought in his name?
While the very act of burning toxic waste is reprehensible, this ongoing annual pollution event shows a condition of heart bereft of moral responsibility. Even as humanity staggers from the Climate Crisis to Biodiversity Loss we have it within our grasp to at least alleviate the symptoms of these and other impending calamities.
But can we realistically hope for change? What can be done?
To be fair, local authorities are at least making a stab at educating people as to individual responsibility. Perhaps you heard the radio ads regarding burning on bonfire night, as did I.
Then again, perhaps you couldn’t help but see those great and waiting heaps of wood, many topped with old sofas, mattresses and more, or catch that pervasive smell of burning plastic that fills St John’s Eve year after year.
Following reports from concerned members of the public, potentially hazardous materials were removed from bonfire sites in various parts of the county.
Would we have officials become more proactive in this regard? Education, rather than legislation, ought to be the answer.

– Michael Kingdon, a naturalist, keen fisherman and Mayo News Living section contributor, lives on the shores of Lough Carra near Moorehall.