Northern Irish police arrest man after mosque replica atop bonfire

The Police Service of Northern Ireland arrested a 56-year-old man after a mosque replica was placed atop a bonfire in Moygashel, County Tyrone. He was held on suspicion of displaying threatening, abusive or insulting material intended to stir up hatred.

The display sat on a tall wooden-pallet structure in the pro-British town on the outskirts of Dungannon, about 65 km west of Belfast, ahead of the bonfires burned before the Orange Order’s annual July 12 parades. Beneath the replica, banners read “secure our borders” and “end the threat of radical Islam,” while an effigy of a person holding a knife was placed in one of the windows. Britain’s Northern Ireland minister, Hilary Benn, called it a “sickening and cowardly act of intimidation” and said it did not reflect tradition or the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland.

The bonfire is one of about 300 lit before the 12 July commemorations of William of Orange’s victory over Roman Catholic King James at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The mosque replica appeared a month after anti-migrant violence swept Belfast. In 2025, it carried a model boat with more than a dozen life-sized mannequins wearing life jackets, along with placards reading “stop the boats” and “veterans before refugees.” Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh John McDowell called that display “racist, threatening and offensive,” while Amnesty International Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan described it as a “vile, dehumanising act that fuels hatred and racism.” The same site had featured a mock police car in 2025 and a boat representing the post-Brexit Irish Sea economic border in 2023.

In 2026, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin joined McDowell in a joint statement calling the mosque effigy “grossly offensive” and warning that crude symbols and threats of violence against Muslims undermine religious freedom. The Democratic Unionist Party said effigies should not be placed on bonfires, while also arguing that lawful political expression should not be censored simply because it offends.