James Nesbitt is one of the big names attending a rally on Irish unification today. The high-profile actor will deliver the keynote speech at the end of the event in Dublin this afternoon.
The Cold Feet actor, will appear before thousands at the 3Arena for the rally organised by the pro-unity group Ireland’s Future. Political leaders will also be in attendance alongside actor Colm Meaney.
Ireland’s deputy premier and leader of the Fine Gael party Leo Varadkar will give an address, as will Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald with five political parties taking part. However unionist parties in Northern Ireland are not involved in the event.
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The cross-community Alliance Party is also not participating. The party, which does not take a position on the constitutional question, said while it was prepared to take part in discussions on the issue, it said it would not be appropriate to attend what it described as a “rally to endorse a united Ireland”.
The stated aim of Ireland’s Future is to promote debate and discussion about what a united Ireland would look like. It is campaigning for a referendum on reunification.
The group contends that Brexit has created a fresh impetus for constitutional change, with more people looking at unification as a way to mitigate the consequences of the UK’s departure from the EU.
The event is being held days after census figures showed that Catholics now outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland for the first time since the partition of the island.
The Census 2021 figures, published last Thursday, show that 45.7 per cent of the region’s population said they were either Catholic or brought up as a Catholic.
The figures for Protestants (and other Christian faiths) was 43.5 per cent while 1.5 per cent were from non-Christian religions.
Northern Ireland had a significant Protestant majority when it was established in 1921 as part of the partition of Ireland. Its founders believed this Protestant majority would secure the future of the newly-created political entity.
Some nationalists hailed the census results as a seminal moment in the history of the region, drawing a direct link between the religious breakdown and public opinion on the potential reunification of Ireland.
However, unionists criticised this interpretation, insisting religious affiliation is a crude metric to measure sentiment on the constitutional question.
The census figures also included data on national identity.
Census 2021 showed that 31.9 per cent said they were “British-only” and 8 per cent deemed themselves “British and Northern Irish”.
The proportion of the population that said they were “Irish-only” was 29.1 per cent while those identifying as “Northern Irish-only” was 19.8 per cent.
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