This has been a difficult week for community relations in Derry, with small numbers of people on both sides trying to outdo each other in terms of causing insult and offence.
Last weekend's display by the Clyde Valley Flute Band in support of Soldier F, charged with two murders on Bloody Sunday, is being viewed as a setback to the painstaking and positive progress that has been made over a number of years in the city in dealing with contentious marches.
While the DUP leadership missed an opportunity to assert the importance of maintaining good relations and repairing damaged trust, senior figures in the Apprentice Boys correctly identified the need to mend fences in a city where efforts towards mutual respect and tolerance are widely recognised.
However, as we know from our troubled history, objectionable and insensitive behaviour is not the exclusive domain of any one side.
We have seen with deep dismay the increase in dissident republican activity in the north west, with young people being manipulated and used by older more sinister elements.
Sadly, the shocking murder of Lyra McKee earlier this year has not resulted in a wholesale rejection of violence and disorder on the part of disaffected youth, who engaged in street disturbances last weekend following the Apprentice Boys parade.
Thursday night saw the burning of a bonfire bedecked with Union and loyalist flags, Parachute Regiment emblems and abusive placards about Soldier F.
The PSNI said it was treating the matter as a 'hate incident' saying the display of this material 'has been perceived as offensive and distasteful.'
It will hardly come as a surprise that bonfire builders have resorted to this type of despicable conduct. As with the internment anniversary bonfires in north Belfast and Newry, the Derry pyre has been associated with anti-social behaviour.
It is also a threat to property, with the fire service having to direct water at a nearby building to stop it burning.
What we can say with certainty is that these bonfires do nothing to promote a better society and the sooner we move away from hate-fuelled displays the better.
