by Denzil McDaniel 

For a change when the camera was on him, Adrian Dunbar wasn’t acting; he was visibly moved at an account of brutality and horror during the Spanish Civil War. It was a conflict in which his uncle, Charlie Dunbar had been persuaded to volunteer for “to fight for his religion.”
But the experience of what Charlie saw left a deep scar and changed him forever.
Adrian was the focus of the “Who Do You Think You Are?” on RTE on Sunday evening, and it was a fascinating watch.
As we all get a little older, many of us seem to have an increasing interest in our own past, especially our own family history. In Ireland, family is still a powerfully symbolic and emotive part of our DNA, and the programme often reveals some interesting context for individual celebrities.
As Adrian said: “All of us are interested in our backgrounds; where we come from and what you’re born into. Those things shape who you are.”
There’s no doubt that we will have been particularly interested in Dunbar’s journey into his background; after all he’s one of our own. 
But the interest in the programme went much deeper and much more meaningful. With several little vignettes showing the complexity of identity in Ireland.
A word used frequently these days in all sorts of context is binary, meaning only two parts or division into two groups. It’s particularly apt to the world view of Northern Ireland. Protestant equals Unionist/British, Catholic equals Nationalist/Irish, would be the perception.
It isn’t the case, of course, and shouldn’t be. But the troubled 20th century in Ireland, particularly the last quarter of it, saw both groups driven further into a silo mentality. 
I’ve always felt that there was a certain irony in the fact that a violent Republican campaign to achieve Irish unity did, actually, create more division.
Now, the current circumstance of changing demographics in the north combined with the Brexit crisis are focusing on identity as we go forward.
Adrian Dunbar is a clever individual and, indeed, a perceptive one and the story of his family background in the programme was punctuated with comments which should evoke some thought about the past, present and future.
Adrian was brought up in Enniskillen in a mainly Nationalist area, though for a few years the family moved to Portadown, Garvaghey Road in fact, where he recalls loyalist paramilitaries parading close by in a show of strength to people in Nationalist areas to know their place. The memory of two communities living apart is eloquently described by Adrian as “social engineering to suit sectarianism”.  
While Enniskillen was much less hostile, the time, the place and the neighbourhood environment where he and his siblings grew up were far from ideal recruiting ground for the British military.
And yet, on his mother Pauline Campling’s side, there is an incredibly strong link and a history of service going back three generations. 
Adrian visited St. Michael’s Church where Frankie Roofe was able to give him intriguing detail of his great-great-grandfather coming to Enniskillen as a soldier from England and converting from Church of England to Catholicism.
Recounting some of the history of the Inniskilling Fusiliers, when the regiment “held the line” for Wellington at Waterloo about half of the 900 men were killed, Adrian himself pointed out that about a third of the men spoke only in Irish. It’s a quirk of how history develops that hundreds of years later the native tongue of men who died serving the British Army is somehow portrayed controversially as anti-British.
Adrian’s grandfather, Walter Campling served in the Inniskillings, and three of his sons (Pauline’s brothers) had distinguished service in the British military in world war.
The programme shows Adrian coming home to Enniskillen to discuss this with his brother Liam.
(By the way, lovely to see the star actor hugging Liam with the greeting “all right cub.” You can take the boy out of Enniskillen…….. And while I’m digressing, at this point let me say that any time I ever met their mum Pauline, whether at the Townhall or up the street, she had the greatest smile and friendliest greeting you could wish for.)
Interestingly, though, Liam said that because they were brought up in Nationalist areas they didn’t go round talking about their ancestors’ British military service. And Adrian himself said that the idea that he and his siblings would have followed the tradition of their three previous generations had gone.
Such service to the British military by Catholic Nationalist families was common, as a look at the names of both communities on the Enniskillen War Memorial show. 
Yet, it was a feature not talked about in recent history and illustrates the complexities of identity that weave their way through our communities. 
Conversely, of course, the perception suggests that all Protestants consider themselves “as British as Finchley” and that’s just as much an oversimplification. Surely the two identities don’t slot handily into their own homogeneous monolith?
There were a couple of telling moments, I thought, in the Dunbar programme. 
His uncle Charlie, whom Adrian remembers fondly dishing out sixpences, had been convinced in the late 1930s to join the Irish brigade fighting for the fascist Franco in the Spanish Civil War under the guise of fighting to preserve the Catholic religion against the evils of Communism.
On hearing some of the shocking atrocities that his uncle witnessed, Adrian reflected: “People do a lot of things in the name of religion, don’t they? Sadly, as we know only too well in the north.”
And he added: “The combination of religion and politics is not a good one.”
And there was another line which struck me. Adrian was shown a photo of Queen Victoria’s state visit to Dublin in 1900 when the city was still under British rule. 
He was shown the regimental band, including his grandfather, and considering the protest and fight for independence in Ireland which was about to change everything, Adrian referred to his grandfather and other comrades as being “on the wrong side of history.”
A century on from that Royal visit, the country saw a war of independence, a civil war, decades of conflict in this part of the island and more recently more Royal visits by the current Queen both north and south of the Border.
And now it’s a pertinent question to ask what side of history the various identities are on now. 
The confusion and uncertainty over future membership of the European Union has thrown the subject of identity to the forefront, and there is the suggestion (with some justification I believe) that the issue of Irish unity is firmly on the agenda. 
To be honest, I don’t think even if a Border poll was held that it would result in unity just now.
But here’s a thing. On Sky News last week, journalist Adam Boulton was interviewing Scottish Deputy First Minister, John Swiney and his opening question was: “What do you think is more likely to happen first, a united Ireland or an independent Scotland?”
The fact that he asked it seriously is telling, as is Swiney’s serious reply which began, “It’s a close run thing….”
In the current political climate, the DUP say they are engaged in a “battle for the Union.” Aside from the fact that all politics here seems to boil down to that, in this case the DUP may well be right. 
But are their tactics securing it or forcing people to look deep down at the importance of their identity and how it fits into to Ireland, Britain and Europe in 2018 going forward?