THE Irish Film and Television Academy Awards took place last night, with a good representation of Northern Irish actors among the nominees, underlining how central performers from the north have become to contemporary Irish storytelling.

Belfast actor Anthony Boyle was nominated for lead actor in a drama for his role in House of Guinness, while west Belfast’s Lola Petticrew was shortlisted for lead actress in a drama for Trespasses. Martin McCann and Katherine Devlin were also recognised for their performances in Blue Lights, the BBC police drama set in Belfast.

None of this is accidental. In recent years, actors, writers and directors from Northern Ireland have been at the centre of some of the most critically acclaimed film and television productions.

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What is striking is not simply their success but the kinds of stories they are telling.

For decades Northern Ireland appeared on screen largely in one register. Its history was framed through violence, its characters often reduced to symbols of the conflict which defined the place for much of the late 20th century. The recent wave of work has not abandoned that history but approaches it differently.

Say Nothing, adapted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s account of the Troubles, focused less on political chronology and more on emotional consequence.

Trespasses, based on Louise Kennedy’s novel, examined the moral ambiguity and private tensions of life shaped by division.

Blue Lights, set in the present day, portrays a police force still operating within the institutional and psychological legacy of the past.

The focus is not on the mechanics of conflict, but on the people shaped by it.

Most of the artists behind these works belong to a generation raised after the Good Friday Agreement. Their work reflects that distance. It is less defined by direct experience of violence, and more by an attempt to understand how its effects continue to shape identity, community and everyday life.

That shift in perspective is evident not only in the stories being told, but in who is telling them.

Increasingly Northern Irish actors and writers are no longer confined to supporting roles or productions explicitly about conflict. They are leading major international projects and reaching global audiences while still drawing on the specificity of their own experiences.

Their success reflects both the strength of the creative infrastructure that has developed locally and a wider appetite for stories that move beyond familiar narratives.

Anthony Boyle’s recent casting in Channel 4’s adaptation of Michael Magee’s Close to Home, a novel centred on post-Troubles Belfast, suggests that creatively this remains fertile ground.

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There is sometimes an assumption that Northern Ireland’s cultural output will, or should, move beyond the Troubles entirely. But history rarely recedes so conveniently. Its influence persists, not only in politics and institutions, but in memory and imagination.

What distinguishes much of the current work is its refusal to treat the past as spectacle. Instead, it focuses on individuals, their compromises, contradictions and attempts to reflect what they have inherited.

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In doing so these actors and filmmakers are intent on reshaping how Northern Ireland is understood, both at home and beyond.

© The Irish News