Northern Irish actor James Nesbitt has claimed the conversation is “out there” on a united Ireland as he reflected on the sectarian backlash he received two years on from speaking at a border poll event.
The Ballymena-born man also said he believes that many more people in Northern Ireland from a Protestant or unionist background are considering their Irish identity.
Back in 2022, just weeks after Nesbitt was the keynote speaker at an event in Dublin advocating for a united Ireland, sectarian graffiti appeared on a wall in Portrush.
The message threatening the Bloodlands actor was treated by police as a hate crime at the time, however no one was arrested in connection with the incident.
The graffiti, was located near a property that the Bloodlands actor owns and carried the slogan: “1 x King, 1 x crown, no Pope in our town James Nesbitt”.
At the time Nesbitt said the issue “saddened” him.
Reflecting on the events two years on Nesbitt claimed he doesn’t think there would be the same reaction in 2024 if he were to speak at a similar event.
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He also addressed where he thinks the current debate around a united Ireland is, telling BBC NI’s Good Morning Ulster: “For any flak that I got [at the time] my only concern about that was that it was sort of bringing [attention to] Portrush where I spend so much of my time now.
“The conversation [around a united Ireland] continues to be out there. Thank God Stormont is back,” he said.
“If you were to ask me – the boy that I was many, many years ago – that I would ever stand in Dublin and make that speech, I would have said you are bonkers. The debate continues to be out there,” he said.
Nesbitt feels more unionists are now more open to discussing some of the issues he addressed at that Ireland’s Future Conference.
“So much of what I was trying to say was that my background, my culture, my history, does not disallow me from considering myself an Irishman,” he said.
“I think that many more from my background are beginning to see that and feel that.
“You can call yourself whatever you want, you can call yourself Northern Irish, from the north of Ireland, you can be nationalist, unionist, that doesn’t matter.
“It is just about having an identity and a protected identity and feeling that you can be part of a shared island, with shared identities in which we move forward for the best of everyone.”
Two years ago Nesbitt said he attended the event in Dublin because he wanted to “lend my voice to what can change” and at the time spoke of “a new union of Ireland” at the rally.
“I am only an actor at the end of the day. I am given a platform and I could decide not to use that platform, I decide to do because I have never really left Ireland. It is my home I love it. I think there has to be a debate.”