Political leaders and actors among those who will attend the Irish unity rally

Politicians and high profile actors will later address an Irish reunification rally in Dublin.

Pro-unity group Ireland’s Future, which organized the event at the 3Arena, said thousands of people are expected to attend.

Actors Jimmy Nesbitt and Colm Meaney will be among those in attendance.

Cold Feet star Nesbitt will deliver the keynote address at the end of the afternoon’s rally.

The leaders of five political parties will also attend.

Irish Deputy Prime Minister and Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar will address the event, as will Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald.

The stated goal of Ireland’s Future is to encourage debate and discussion about what a united Ireland would look like. She advocates a referendum on reunification.

The group claims that Brexit has created a new impetus for constitutional changes, as more and more people see unification as a way to mitigate the consequences of the UK’s exit from the EU.

Unionist parties in Northern Ireland are not involved in Saturday’s event.

The supra-municipal alliance party is also not involved.

The party, which does not comment on the constitutional issue, said while it was prepared to take part in discussions on the issue, it said it was not appropriate to attend what it described as a “rally in support of a united Ireland”. .

The event comes days after census figures showed that Catholics in Northern Ireland outnumbered Protestants for the first time since the island was partitioned.

The 2021 census figures released last Thursday show that 45.7% of the region’s population said they were either Catholic or were raised Catholic.

The figures for Protestants (and other Christian denominations) were 43.5%, while 1.5% were from non-Christian religions.

Northern Ireland had a significant Protestant majority when it was formed in 1921 as part of the Partition of Ireland. Its founders believed that 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 region’s history, drawing a direct link between religious collapse and public opinion about the eventual reunification of Ireland.

However, trade unionists have criticized this interpretation, insisting that religious affiliation is a rough measure of sentiment on the constitutional issue.

The census figures also contained data on national identity.

The 2021 census showed that 31.9% said they were ‘British only’ and 8% considered themselves ‘British and Northern Irish’.

The proportion of the population who said they were ‘just Irish’ was 29.1%, while 19.8% of those who identified themselves as ‘just Northern Irish’ was 19.8%.