Some unionists in Northern Ireland are so inured to it now they were laughing it off yesterday. Others, though, were fulminating against Hollywood once more.

Brad Pitt became the latest US actor to weigh in on matters Irish.

In an interview with Esquire, Pitt said: "As with anything, it comes down to a few bad people. But I want to know why the British empire is promoting this pain. Why can't the empire right its wrong?"

Pitt, who sparked controversy with his sympathetic portrayal of an IRA man in Alan Pakula's 1996 film The Devil's Own, had spent several months in Belfast trying to perfect his accent for the role. He has since visited Northern Ireland several times.

The Democratic Unionist party's Jim Shannon, a member of the assembly's arts and culture committee, labelled Pitt's comments deeply offensive.

But critics say he will surely never get it so wrong as Mickey Rourke did over his 1987 film A Prayer for the Dying.

Rourke, who had Irish grandparents, was once reported to have admitted to having given large sums to the IRA, but later threatened to sue over the allegations.