Ever since the Adrian Dunbar interview in this paper a few weeks ago, people have been asking me why Unionists don’t engage more proactively in debates and discussions about Irish unity?

They don’t even ‘sell’ Northern Ireland well.

There seems to be a head-in-the-sand mentality, a circling of the traditional wagons rather than an engagement in conversations.

A couple of times previously in articles, I have suggested that political Unionism appears to be living in a different country and a different time zone to civic Unionism, or the rest of Britain.

When I hear a great many Unionist politicians offering a view of Northern Ireland’s future – never mind Ireland’s – it sounds like the kind of nostalgia that drove so many English people to vote for Brexit in 2016.

Sometimes it even seems that there are one or two who would love the days of the B-Specials and the old Protestant Parliament back again.

Probably that’s because such days gave those people a sense of righteousness and a paradoxical sense of security; of circling the wagons against attack.

But why is that the only vision that such politicians seem to have? What’s the problem with chatting about a subject?

Various people on the civic side of Nationalism, such as Professor Colin Harvey of Queen’s University, have invited Unionists to argue the case for their corner.

By not arguing the case, things are just being allowed to drift towards Irish unity, as Adrian Dunbar suggested.

And that’s not necessarily the best of situations for anyone because, if there is to be such a scenario, the new systems have to be shaped by all the people of this island.

Back in 2022, the author Ben Collins provided his highly-personalised and pragmatic argument for Irish reunification, from an Irish Protestant perspective.

It would be great to hear more perspectives like this, especially through civic forums and local community groups.

Discussions about a new Ireland need to happen from the bottom up, rather than the top down.

They also have to take place on the basis of a premise that Northern Ireland as a place has a great deal to offer.

Today’s Sinn Féin have certainly accepted that premise, exemplified by the kind of language the party now uses when talking about the place.

There’s a real vibe of Northern Ireland not being too bad ‘a wee country’, just one that could be even better in a state of unity.

Even the British press have latched onto this notion of Sinn Féin now being the positive, progressive face of Northern Irishness.

A Times Newspaper editorial from last year (2023) said that Unionism has become “frankly tedious” in its “Paisleyite petulance”, showing Britain’s weariness with the land of dreary steeples.

And it’s sad that this place is a self-styled land of dreary steeples.

Because beneath the surface, there’s an awful lot of stuff to be positive about – everything from tourism to the breathtaking success of the local film industry in recent times.

Just last week, I went on The Game of Thrones Studio Tour in Banbridge, where I got in a sword fight with one of the Night King’s men, amongst other things.

And in doing that – touring, not fighting – I had a genuine sense of pride in all that was achieved by people from this part of the world in putting on that world-renowned show.

Everything from pyrotechnics to costume design was perfectly spectacular. The sets and the costumes were a sight to behold – even the meticulousness of the illustrated storyboards that they used as preparation for every scene.

It’s just superb to see something like this spring up and provide so many jobs to people who would otherwise have had to go to America, England or elsewhere.

They’ve been able to stay at home and build a booming industry because they believed in the power of this place to put on a good show.

In some ways, Game of Thrones is maybe more of a benchmark for the future of Northern Ireland than two jaded old knights fighting for the kingdom of Cullybackey.

We’re in a place that’s not so far from the South Korea of the early 2000s.

Then, it was the hangover of the Korean War and the relationship with North Korea that defined their country.

Probably, at that point, Kim Jong-il was the most famous Korean on the planet, along with a pair of Manchester United footballers.

And yet when I was teaching English there for a couple of years, I always thought South Korea was just as cool as Japan, which had a great film industry at the time and fantastic authors sharing stories of their society with the world.

But South Korea wasn’t selling itself very well, obsessing about politics and not culture.

Some 20 years later, the cinematography of the situation has radically changed. Today’s South Korea has been rebranded in the mould of Tony Blair’s ‘Cool Britannia’.

Where once Japan and such writers as Haruki Murakami might have defined Asian cool, imbued with a Western flavour, South Korea has snatched the baton.

Today’s music channels are punctuated with the sounds of K-Pop whilst media companies such as Netflix serve up a constant diet of Korean films and TV dramas.

There’s such a hunger for this pop culture that even on a recent walk through London’s Chinatown, I observed how many of the Asian food stores are also rebranding themselves to feed this appetite for what’s known as ‘Korean Cool’.

South Korea then has proven to be world champion when it comes to the rapid rebranding of itself as a place that is shaped by far more than simply politics.

Throughout the world, even in Ireland, perhaps today’s kids care as much for ‘Gangnam Style’ than they do for either ‘Danny Boy’ or the ‘Londonderry Air’.

The latter are, of course, different names of the same song, but whatever the name, the sound’s the same.

And it doesn’t matter if a thing has no fixed name or two different names or whatever.

Even Mary Lou MacDonald, early on in her leadership of Sinn Féin, said the same about the Derry/Londonderry issue.

We should be thinking about building a progressive and prosperous society, rather than endlessly playing a political Game of Thrones.

People are sick of old dragons; fire-breathing politicians with nothing to offer.

Sinn Féin and other Liberal or Left-wing groupings are putting forward their vision of what they want the future to hold.

It’s a pity Unionism doesn’t do the same.

Paul Breen is @paulbreenauthor on X.