They are among those known as the Disappeared, 17 people who were abducted, murdered and secretly buried by republican paramilitaries during the North\u2019s Troubles. The remains of four \u2013 Joe Lynskey<\/a>, Columba McVeigh, Robert Nairac and Seamus Maguire<\/a> \u2013 have yet to be recovered.<\/p>\n \u201cIn all of my conversations and experience with the Disappeared over the years since 2000,\u201d says Nesbitt, \u201call of it is ultimately about humanity. Rather than rage, humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n He marvels at McKinney\u2019s \u201ccompassion and understanding, having been through the worst\u201d; he describes how she told her son\u2019s story \u2013 \u201cmy Brian had the mind of a six-year-old\u201d and the \u201cyears of anguish, every night, her thinking, is he coming home?<\/p>\n \u201cShe would imagine him crying for his mother before he was put in the grave.\u201d<\/p>\n After a search based on information given to the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims\u2019 Remains (ICLVR) \u2013 which aims to recover the bodies of the Disappeared \u2013 Brian and John\u2019s remains were discovered in a double grave in a bog in Co Monaghan in 1999.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they did the dig, the first thing they found when the shovel went in was his white Adidas shoes, which she kept.\u201d<\/p>\n But, says Nesbitt, \u201cit was a story, unbelievably, of hope and [a] kind of resolution\u201d. She met Bill Clinton<\/a>, and \u201cwas able to turn the president of the United States to tears.\u201d <\/p>\n This, he says, sums up \u201cwhy people are still so interested and compelled to follow these stories, because it is about humanity. It\u2019s about loss, and it\u2019s about decency and it\u2019s about doing the right thing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no two sides to it … this is a story that resonates with people everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Since 2003, Nesbitt has been a patron of Wave, the largest cross-community victims and survivors group in Northern Ireland, which works with about 3,500 people every year who have been bereaved, injured or suffered trauma due to the Troubles, including the families of the Disappeared.<\/p>\n Wave includes in this group the relatives of Lisa Dorrian and Gareth O\u2019Connor, who disappeared in 2005 and 2003 respectively; they are not covered by the ICLVR because its remit stops at the 1998 Belfast Agreement.<\/p>\n Nesbitt\u2019s involvement began at a Wave fundraising event in 2000; he compares it to \u201cthe first time going on the Big Dipper. You go on and you get into the little car, and you don\u2019t know what\u2019s about to happen, but away you go.<\/p>\n I was self-aware, I knew I was famous, I knew I had an impact<\/p>\n \u2014 \u00a0James Nesbitt <\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cIt gripped me immediately, because it was the stories \u2013 traumatic, harrowing stories, extraordinary stories about ordinary people, and there was an organisation at that time who were prepared to represent anyone, no matter what age, where they came from, what class … where they could come together to begin to explore the trauma they\u2019ve been through.”<\/p>\n [\u00a0Family of Jean McConville criticise \u2018hurtful\u2019 Disney+ dramatisationOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n To get involved \u201cjust seemed like a natural thing to do\u201d, he says. \u201cIt had that same kind of immediate impact like falling in love.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like\u201d \u2013 he clicks his fingers, to emphasise the immediacy of the moment \u2013 \u201cand then you\u2019re on board.\u201d<\/p>\n He still has the painting of a cow he bought that night. \u201cI thought it was [by] Paul Bell, the really successful artist of cows, and I think I was conned,\u201d he jokes.<\/p>\n For many people, it would have been job done; auction attended, picture bought, money raised. \u201cIt becomes something you can\u2019t let go of,\u201d says Nesbitt. \u201cThe story was an awful lot bigger than me.\u201d<\/p>\n He pauses; again, the tears threaten. \u201cThere\u2019s probably, I think, at my heart all my life … there\u2019s always a bit where I\u2019m thinking about my mother or my father.<\/p>\n \u201cEven then, when she was kind of disappearing into Alzheimer\u2019s … there was always something in me thinking, Mummy would like that. My mother would be proud of that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd also, because I was self-aware, I knew I was famous, I knew I had an impact, and also I\u2019d left home, I was in exile, but for me, Ireland, the North, will always be my home.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it was an opportunity to connect with that, and to do something. Do the right thing.<\/p>\n Growing up in Broughshane, Co Antrim<\/a> \u2013 where Nesbitt\u2019s father Jim was the headmaster of a rural Protestant primary school \u2013 and then the university town of Coleraine, \u201cas much as the Troubles were a backdrop to my childhood, they were up the road a bit\u201d.<\/p>\n His first stage role came in 1978, in the Riverside Theatre\u2019s Christmas production of Oliver, and at 19 he left Northern Ireland to study acting in London. <\/p>\n Today, Nesbitt looks back on his \u201cfortuitous success\u201d in television and film and the profile it gave him; his many credits include a starring role in the long-running ITV series Cold Feet, which debuted in 1997, and playing the role of Ivan Cooper in the 2002 film Bloody Sunday.<\/p>\n He recalls its director, Paul Greengrass<\/a>, telling him \u201cfor any actor, particularly from the North, you have to take on the Troubles at some point.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like taking on King Lear \u2013 it\u2019s a privilege and a responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, he says, it was only when he met people such as McConville and McKinney \u201cthat you can engage with what trauma is, meant, and what people have lived with all their life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTruthfully,\u201d he says, \u201cit felt that there was no way I couldn\u2019t be involved.<\/p>\n \u201cI think,\u201d he continues, \u201cif I\u2019m honest, I think it sort of rescued me a wee bit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy fame and all that went with it … I think certainly I was losing track of myself. I think I was probably a wee bit lost.<\/p>\n \u201cIt really countered a lot of the corruption, the difficulties that fame would bring and the way you get carried away … I certainly, at times, fell prey to that, and Wave, it was as much a healing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n He emphasises it \u201cwould be wrong of me\u201d not to say he is proud of the work he has done. \u201cYeah, I am. I am proud of it. People are scared of being proud of things. I am, but what I get from that pride has been good for me. It sustains me.\u201d<\/p>\n At Wave, he is part of a \u201cfamily\u201d; he has met children and grandchildren, attended funerals, shared a lot of pain, but also a lot of laughter. \u201cProtestants and Catholics who\u2019ve been through trauma like you wouldn\u2019t believe, sat beside each other.\u201d<\/p>\n Nesbitt speaks warmly of another friend, Joe Griffin, who he got to know when he played him in the 2009 film Five Minutes of Heaven (when he was 11 Griffin witnessed his 19-year-old brother Jim being murdered by the UVF). \u201cI took Joe to meet Pel\u00e9, Joe got a shirt signed by Pel\u00e9.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJoe loved that,\u201d says Wave chief executive Sandra Peake. She is keen to emphasise this is typical of Nesbitt; he puts in \u201chours and hours that nobody sees\u201d, from unexpected donations to remembering phone calls on anniversaries.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy Jimmy was so important at the start was because so few people would stand with those families, yet he stood with us as a public figure, with profile,\u201d says Peake. \u201cHe helped dilute the stigma \u2013 he was saying, it\u2019s right and proper that we address this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n [\u00a0The Disappeared: \u2018If you think there are straightforward heroes and villains then you are not thinking hard enough\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n More than 20 years on, time is running out. Each summer, Wave hosts a day of reflection, and each summer, there are more empty chairs, even as its referrals are increasing. \u201cI do know there should be justice for those people,\u201d says Nesbitt. \u201cYou cannot move on without addressing the trauma, the loss, the legacy for so many people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWave unites, again and again, and that\u2019s one of the differences between the politics and the reality of these true stories, and I think we\u2019ve more of a chance of moving on if we continue to acknowledge the work that places like this do.\u201d<\/p>\n Throughout, Nesbitt has been part of that work, from travelling to Westminster with members of the Wave Injured Group, to campaigning for the victims\u2019 pension, to accompanying relatives of the Disappeared to digs including, most recently, the search for McVeigh<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see it for the first time, it\u2019s horrifying,\u201d he says. \u201cIn a bog, like a massive sheugh, in Bragan in Co Monaghan with Oliver and Dympna, standing beside them, standing watching them look at what seems to be an impossible task of finding their brother Columba, who\u2019s been missing since 1975.<\/p>\n \u201cTo have seen the hope on their faces … and that\u2019s the terribly crushing thing about it, the devastation they must go through, and then the ability to get up in the morning and go again, it\u2019s humbling and it\u2019s life-affirming.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite multiple searches, McVeigh is still missing. Nesbitt recites the names of the others: Lisa Dorrian, Seamus Maguire, Joe Lynskey, Robert Nairac. \u201cA lot of people may have mixed views on Robert Nairac, but a British soldier doesn\u2019t deserve to be lying on Irish soil.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet he emphasises that 14 people have been found and their remains returned to their families. \u201cIt\u2019s a process that has worked. There is hope out there.\u201d<\/p>\n This is his appeal: \u201cI have watched over the years as families have gone through unimaginable trauma, but I have seen the success, I\u2019ve seen the shift and the resolution, the joy of finding your loved one\u2019s remains so that you can, like everyone else, give a burial, a Christian burial, whatever kind of burial you want.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Who was Robert Nairac and what happened to him?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cGo to a wake, tend a grave, bring flowers, communicate with your loved one, knowing that they\u2019re there.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone knows what the pain of loss is, but everyone has the comfort and very basic right of being able to give their loved ones a burial or have a wake, have a grave they can go to.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you think you know something, it means you know something. Look into your conscience and try to help, because these people have suffered enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Anyone with information on any of the four outstanding ICLVR Disappeared cases \u2013 Joe Lynskey, Columba McVeigh, Robert Nairac and Seamus Maguire \u2013 should contact the ICLVR. All information is treated in the strictest confidence.<\/p>\n The ICLVR can be contacted by telephone: +353 1 602 8655, email Secretary@iclvr.ie<\/a> or by post to: ICLVR PO Box 10827<\/p>\n![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/D4O4I27LXZANVLFK665DSSY66Q.JPG\")
James Nesbitt on working with Wave: ‘It gripped me immediately.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n\n
![\"Actor](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/BAVACPE5GZAFTISV3EZ2WCF5W4.JPG\")
Actor James Nesbitt in Belfast: ‘I think certainly I was losing track of myself.’ Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6CBESPN3T5FGVJTDYWCZT3VUFI.JPG\")
James Nesbitt at the offices of Wave Trauma in Belfast with Wave board member Dennis Godfrey and chief executive Sandra Peake. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/C4BUEL2OB6N3CYZTRKPOLAYBIM.jpg\")
James Nesbitt walking with Joe Lynskey’s niece Maria Lynskey (centre) and Columba McVeigh’s sister Dympna Kerr (right) during the 17th annual All Souls Silent Walk for the Disappeared at Stormont in 2023. Photograph: Liam McBurney\/PA Wire <\/p>\n