Northern Ireland-born actor Jamie Dornan has described feeling emotional at the end of Derry Girls, as well as his frustration at the “mess” at Stormont.
He has admitted to sending his writer Lisa McGee the ‘slopiest’ text message after seeing the final episode of the hit series – reflecting the sense of hope in the 1998 signing of the Belfast Agreement after decades of violence .
Dornan appeared at an Our Time In Space event at the Lyric Theater in Belfast to talk about integrated education, but also the current impasse in Stormont.
He described local politics as “a mess” and politicians as “archaic” in the way they talk “in the same sentences they’ve been talking about for 50 years” – a situation made worse by Brexit.
“It’s not the conversations we should be having. It’s really harmful in the end,” he told the PA news agency.
“Obviously Brexit has questioned so many inconvenient truths for the people here, asking about the case of how you identify has been turned upside down by Brexit and suddenly all these people who, all they care about are British feel, feel like they are being undermined by not feeling British enough. It’s a mess, that won’t change.”
Mr Dornan described his experience attending Methodist College, a school with diverse student backgrounds – although not in the formally integrated sector, as shaping him.
He said the scenes in Derry Girls where the girls participate in cross-community programs reminded him of his school days when he traveled to the Share Center in Co Fermanagh.
“I identified a lot with Derry Girls, I get emotional when I talk about the final,” he said.
We are in a post-conflict society and your decision-making about where to send your kids to school has changed.
“I know Lisa well, that’s pretty much the slackest text I’ve ever felt to anyone as I wrapped up the finale, trying to work through the nuanced complications of being out of this part of the world at the time with such’ n integrity and such humor is almost impossible, I don’t know how she managed it, it’s unbelievable and so poignant.”
He said his generation and McGee’s generation are now making the decision about where to send their children to school.
“We are in a post-conflict society and your decision-making about where to send your children to school has changed,” he said.
“The method shaped me… it was a little more Protestant then than it is now, but it also had a large international community. Mixing all those different elements together is helpful, to get a broader understanding of what it’s all about.
“Division never felt real, it was never on the surface. It was nothing, I have a feeling that as time goes on, the influence of the church is weakening.”
While most Protestant pupils attend controlled schools in Northern Ireland and most Catholic children attend schools, both sectors maintain that they are not exclusive to individual religions and have increasingly diverse enrollments.
Currently, approximately 7% of school children in Northern Ireland attend schools that are officially designated as integrated.
Just under 70 of the 1,091 schools in the region are integrated.
Mr Dornan called the figures too low.
“I understand very well why there would be certain factions in society that would be against that faction being bigger, but I don’t think kids four years old are taken and they’re divided, and the idea of division and tribalism is the right way to go,” he said.
However, I have admitted that some schools outside the industry, such as Methody, are more mixed than some realize.
“When people find out I went to Methody, they immediately think, ‘You’re just a fancy prod’, I think I’m officially kind of that, but I was also raised non-religious and I never felt like a Protestant again. felt than Catholic,” he said.
The event takes place on the 40th anniversary of the founding of Northern Ireland’s first integrated school, Lagan College on the outskirts of South Belfast.
Dornan took part in an ‘in conversation’ event with artist Oliver Jeffers, Baroness May Blood and Hugh Odling-Smee about the future of the industry.
Mr. Jeffers and Mr. Odling-Smee, who were both in integrated schools, shared their experiences.
Mr. Jeffers described an influence on his work as an artist, describing a theme of duality and being able to talk to different people in different ways.
Mr Odling-Smee said there had been a Catholic chaplain during his time at Lagan College in the 1980s, whom he said took risks to be there.
“It’s a difficult issue, the place of religion, and where it sits in the school,” he said.
Baroness Blood, a longtime campaigner for integrated education, emphasized the importance of the mix of backgrounds in terms of income and religious/cultural background.
She described the Catholic and Presbyterian churches as the biggest barrier to the expansion of integrated education.
But she said it is the future, adding that the churches are seeing more of their parishioners attend integrated schools.
She also revealed the current demand for integrated schools and said 1,500 children were turned away last year.
Our Place in Space will host a program of free events at venues across Belfast from June 27 to July 3, including a performance by Chelsea Clinton.