Dusk has fallen, but it’s still 30 degrees. Mobility scooters roll over streets sticky with spilled Buckfast and Bacardi Breezers. Distant shouts of “fuck the Pope” pierce the vape-clouded air. A poster advertises a Star Wars-themed sex show.
Outside a disused insurance office, a topless middle-aged man assembles a crowd of around 50 people. His bronzed, distended stomach squeezes itself behind a huge drum. As he starts to pound it, the group begins to yelp and whoop, holding up their phones to FaceTime home.
This is Benidorm — and this is how Benidorm celebrates the 12th of July.
Technically, this is how Benidorm celebrates the 11th of July. Tonight, in Belfast and Glasgow, bonfires up to 210 feet tall burn across the city. They’re visible from the top of Cave Hill in Belfast; orange pockets across the landscape, relics from their unlikely Irish pagan roots in the festivals of Midsummer, Bealtaine and Samhain. In Benidorm, there are no bonfires — although rumours abound that in the early hours of the morning, someone somewhere burned a tricolour. By morning, the only evidence is a bucket filled with embers and charred branches, left outside the Ibrox Bar.
Become a free member to read this article.