{"id":19274,"date":"2025-08-23T23:56:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/19274\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T23:56:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:56:18","slug":"you-became-politicised-i-think-everybody-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/19274\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou became politicised. I think everybody did\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a young boy growing up in Enniskillen in the 1960s, Adrian Dunbar absorbed all manner of television programmes on BBC and ITV.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat child\u2019s glued to the telly, as my ma used to say,\u201d Dunbar recalls. \u201cI used to watch everything. So, imagine the idea that I ended up through great fortune creating an iconic character on British TV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunbar has had an illustrious career in film, television and theatre playing a variety of roles over more than four decades, but it is his portrayal of Ted Hastings hunting down \u201cbent coppers\u201d in Line of Duty<\/a> that many will immediately identify with.<\/p>\n

He captures Hastings\u2019 character perfectly, the steely determination, almost a hint of menace behind his integrity. People are comforted that the good guy comes through even though Hastings isn\u2019t exactly a bundle of fun.<\/p>\n

\"“You<\/a>\"“We<\/a><\/p>\n

By contrast the off-screen Dunbar is likeable and engaging. He allies a sharp mind with humour and is sociable and talkative. It makes for lively conversation about his life and career; living in London he still keeps the link with his beloved Enniskillen \u201cbig time\u201d.<\/p>\n

His deep roots and the people and place are important to him<\/a>. He gets them. <\/p>\n

The affection is mutual, and locals are proud of one of their own. In the town centre of Enniskillen, a large mural depicts a drawing of Dunbar as Hastings alongside the wording \u201cNow we\u2019re sucking diesel\u201d the phrase the actor introduced into the script.<\/p>\n

Four of his six siblings still live there, and he recounts in fine detail his \u201cidyllic\u201d upbringing, his schoolfriends and those who helped him on a career path.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s patron of the town\u2019s Aisling Centre, which he believes does really important, much-needed work in mental health and he supports Enniskillen Gaels, attending the plan to develop Brewster Park by \u201ca really forward-thinking and inclusive club\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AdrianAdrian Dunbar on the set of the sixth series of Line of Duty (Liam McBurney\/PA) <\/p>\n

But a bit of the Hastings integrity and desire for justice comes through too as he talks about people in Northern Ireland becoming politicised by division and returns often to the theme of housing being symptomatic of the ills of society<\/p>\n

He\u2019s dismayed that a lot of the north\u2019s problems and the failures of the State could have been addressed much earlier by the Unionist establishment.<\/p>\n

He believes there were several moments in earlier years that things \u201ccould have been sorted out\u201d but Unionism failed to grasp the opportunity. He recalls with sadness the \u201cdespicable act of violence that was the bomb in Enniskillen in 1987\u201d. <\/p>\n

Dunbar warms to the talk of constitutional change and insists \u201cpartition doesn\u2019t work\u201d and he becomes enthusiastically positive about his admiration for James Connolly\u2019s vision for Ireland<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The boy who grew up in Enniskillen admits that in his younger days, there was no thought of identity politics, and he says, \u201cOur home in Castle Street was in close proximity to the lake and the castle and my earliest memory is wandering round the area with my father and brother John. It was a very tight community and walking along the street, guys would pat you on the head and call you by name, even though you didn\u2019t know who they were.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lake and the playing fields were the centre of my life, and we were all interested in boats and fishing. Sport was also really important, and people were very, very close,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"AdrianAdrian Dunbar has been a long-time supporter of and participant in Enniskillen’s Happy Days festival. Picture by Paul Faith <\/p>\n

\u201cIt really was a fantastic place to grow up,\u201d says Dunbar whose family then moved to Cornagrade, a mixed estate and he rhymes off the names of protestant and catholic families.<\/p>\n

Such is the complexity of identity that, although from a catholic background, Dunbar recalls sleeping in the attic in Castle Street alongside the framed embroidered colours from the \u201cSkins\u201d the nickname for the Inniskillings Regiment in which his maternal great-grandfather served as regimental sergeant major and later his grandfather as colour sergeant.<\/p>\n

The island town of Enniskillen has better community integration than most in the north and Dunbar says in his younger days, \u201cIdentity politics didn\u2019t really come into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, he adds, that Bloody Sunday was a watershed moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven before that, the subject of housing was the big issue,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s really interesting that housing is central to keeping a democracy together. Giving people somewhere to live is really important,\u201d he says and when this and other issues weren\u2019t resolved \u201ceverything got polarised.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou started to realise there were two sides. You kind of realise early on that when you were five years of age, somebody who you were playing with was not going to the same school as you. It came as a shock,\u201d he recalls. \u201cEven at five years old, this is something that resonates quite deeply.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds: \u201cIf you wanted to set up a country that was dysfunctional, the first place to start would be to separate people on the grounds of religion. Once you do that, you introduce fear into the equation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young Dunbar would come face-to-face with that fear in the early 1970s. With little work in Enniskillen, his father Sean sought employment in his native Portadown and brought the family to live in Churchill Park on the Garvaghy Road.<\/p>\n

It was the period of the Ulster Workers Council strike and Dunbar recalls a \u201cvery, very scary time\u201d for the catholic family with tartan gangs of loyalists wrecking the town centre and threatening to destroy the nationalist area where he lived.<\/p>\n

Protestants from his area and catholics from Brownstown were exchanging houses to get into the safety of the silos of their own communities.<\/p>\n

More segregation, more housing issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was scary to see a whole society falling apart. It was really disconcerting to see sectarian violence with people being shot for simply being a catholic or a protestant.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout that process, you became politicised. I think everybody did,\u201d he says. \u201cPeople talk about perceived sectarianism but there was real sectarianism, and it started with housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHousing, housing, housing,\u201d he muses. \u201cIf somebody had realised when Austin Currie sat in that house in Caledon all those years ago, by making the distribution of housing more equitable, that would have defused something.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, he says, with a clear tone of regret, \u201cNo, that wasn\u2019t going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CoCo Fermanagh-born actor Adrian Dunbar’s mum Pauline <\/p>\n

He believes it\u2019s a tragedy that the British government and unionism weren\u2019t able to face down loyalism, and says, \u201cThe fact is it did drag on and lots more people died before we came to the Good Friday Agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember being bundled into the car late at night with my brother and sisters and being brought back to stay with our cousins, the Clearys,\u201d he recalls. Dunbar is a first cousin of the ex-Glentoran and Northern Ireland soccer international, Jimmy Cleary.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got back to Enniskillen and we thought, \u2018please, please can we just come back here\u2019,\u201d he says, and it was a \u201chuge relief\u201d when he settled back into St Joseph\u2019s College, alongside old friends such as Paul Keenan and the McClintocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt, \u2018we\u2019re home. This makes sense\u2019. We were a big extended family and it was great to get back to the town,\u201d says Dunbar.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, there was something providential in his return, with circumstances helping his undoubted talent to set him on a path to stardom.<\/p>\n

The Fermanagh Council of the day put great emphasis on the arts and built the Ardhowen \u201cTheatre by the Lakes\u201d and Dunbar enjoyed helping Marty Quinn with the lights and his cousin Imelda McLernon with the box office.<\/p>\n

\"AdrianAdrian Dunbar filming Line of Duty in Belfast in 2017. Picture by Hugh Russell <\/p>\n

He helped out with local drama group St Michael\u2019s and the Enniskillen Amateur Dramatic Society.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I was asked to do a play,\u201d he says. \u201cI did it and people said, \u2018you\u2019re quite good\u2019. That made me realise that the arts were a space where age, colour or religion didn\u2019t matter. It was whether you could do it or not and whether you loved it or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fact that Dunbar could do it was recognised.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really lucky at that point because the council had the foresight to appoint an arts officer, Janet Pierce, who wrote to the Guildhall School of Music and Dance and got me an audition.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rest, as they say, is history. <\/p>\n

He recalls: \u201cI was heading off to what is now recognised as one of the top five music and drama schools in the world. I\u2019m still working with the Guildhall as an alumnus to this day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey made me a Fellow recently which I\u2019m really proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

The actor is still at the top of his game, and says: \u201cI\u2019m 67 now and really happy in the place I\u2019m in. I\u2019m working with some wonderful people, and I\u2019ve got a lot of input into what I do. It\u2019s very satisfying to see ideas you have coming to fruition.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the interview finishes, I thank him for taking time from a hectic schedule and for being so open about a range of topics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh wee buns,\u201d says Dunbar, who loves an Ulster turn of phrase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a young boy growing up in Enniskillen in the 1960s, Adrian Dunbar absorbed all manner of television…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[16834,16837,18,16836,117,19,17,16835],"class_list":{"0":"post-19274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-adrian-dunbar","9":"tag-co-fermanagh","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-enniskillen","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-line-of-duty"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}