{"id":416719,"date":"2026-04-25T10:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416719\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:25:10","slug":"these-topics-have-been-out-of-bounds-for-many-years-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/416719\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018These topics have been out of bounds for many years\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The walls around Kneecap<\/a>\u2019s part of west Belfast<\/a> are coloured with history and culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlessed are those who hunger for justice,\u201d one roughly sprayed piece of graffiti declares. A mural of the boxer Michael Conlan covers a wall on Violet Street, off the Falls Road.<\/p>\n

Another, around the corner on Hawthorn Street, commemorates Mair\u00e9ad Farrell, Se\u00e1n Savage and Daniel McCann, the three IRA members killed by the SAS in Gibraltar in 1988. Opposite that is the well-known Kneecap mural depicting a burning police vehicle.<\/p>\n

Walking up the stairs of the Hawthorn Bar next door, pint of Guinness in hand, Liam \u00d3g \u00d3 hAnnaidh<\/a> asks the barman to bring more pints up in half an hour, and then another round half an hour after that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a Monday lunchtime in a pub that is something of an unofficial base for \u00d3 hAnnaidh, aka Mo Chara, and the rest of Kneecap. Hanging on the back wall downstairs is the sign that he pressed against a window to media below when the crown prosecution service\u2019s appeal to retry a thrown-out case \u2013 the charge had been under the UK Terrorism Act, for allegedly displaying a Hizbullah flag \u2013 was rejected. The sign reads \u201cI\u2019m a free mawn\u201d<\/a>. Upstairs is a single small table painted with Kneecap\u2019s logo.<\/p>\n

A week later the group will play an album launch at the Limelight \u2013 at 750 people, the Belfast venue has a capacity they have long graduated from \u2013 for their new record, Fenian<\/a>.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll also be performing tracks from it when they headline this year\u2019s All Together Now<\/a> festival, in Co Waterford, as well as when they play at Crystal Palace Park, in London, at the Reading and Leeds festivals, and at Primavera, in Barcelona and Porto, among other dates this summer.<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s left that they\u2019d still like to play \u2013 their dream gig? \u201cSlane\u201d, Mo Chara and Naoise \u00d3 Caireall\u00e1in, aka M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap<\/a>, both reply. There\u2019s something primitive about being in a field, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kneecap: Fenian \u2013 Never mind the outrage, here\u2019s the brilliantly catchy five-star albumOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

They\u2019re speaking Irish, as they do throughout our time together. When The Irish Times has talked to Kneecap in the past, before the release<\/a> of their first album<\/a> and their fictionalised biopic<\/a>, in 2024, or at the time of Mo Chara\u2019s court appearances<\/a> in the summer of 2025, it has been in English.<\/p>\n

\"LegalLegal appeal: Kneecap supporters outside court in London in January. Photograph: Lucy North\/PA Wire <\/p>\n

But they rap in Irish, and want to promote the language. So they asked for this interview to be as Gaeilge, and for an English translation to be available, rather than the other way around.<\/p>\n

Kneecap have had the kind of year that few artists will ever experience: huge crowds; cancelled concerts; international coverage when their stance on Palestine<\/a> was seized upon following a performance at Coachella; interventions from prime ministers attempting to remove them from festival line-ups; court hearings; an entire area of Glastonbury<\/a> shut down in the name of crowd control; sold-out arenas.<\/p>\n

A smattering of singles responded to events at the time, including The Recap, lambasting Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British Conservative Party, and No Comment, reflecting the chaos and paranoia engulfing the group.<\/p>\n

Fenian is their second attempt at a second album: they recorded but then parked another. Produced by Dan Carey, who has also worked with Fontaines DC, Wet Leg and Geese, it\u2019s both claustrophobic and expansive, aggressive but with moments of unexpected tenderness, foreboding yet energetic, more directly political and darker than the rollicking hedonism<\/a> of their debut, Fine Art, which they released in 2024.<\/p>\n

Its tracks satirise the UK (An Ra), express transnational solidarity (Palestine), detail the darkness of the Troubles (Occupied 6: \u201cOnly bad news at home \/ Who was shot, was he known? \/ From the shop coming home \/ Another ma on her own\u201d) and squirm in drug-induced insomnia (Cocaine Hill).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis album is a response to our year, the witch hunt, and all the other stuff,\u201d Mo Chara says.<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap:Kneecap: Mo Chara, DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed and M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap. Photograph: Tom Beard <\/p>\n

Kneecap seem to have emerged from that year remarkably relaxed. JJ \u00d3 Dochartaigh, aka DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed<\/a>, their balaclava-wearing DJ and hype man, is absent today. Yesterday, Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>, who banned Kneecap from his country, lost Hungary\u2019s general election<\/a> after 20 years as prime minister.<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says that if Kneecap are Batman, Orb\u00e1n is their Penguin. Last November, when the whistle blew after Troy Parrott\u2019s hat-trick<\/a> against Hungary, Kneecap posted on social media, \u201cStick that up your bollox Viktor Orb\u00e1n.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now there\u2019s just the simple matter of border control.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think we can go to Hungary now?\u201d Mo Chara wonders. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone can stop us getting the train to Hungary,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says, citing all the rail routes into the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cImpossible to police,\u201d Mo Chara decides.<\/p>\n

Most of Fenian came together in the studio, across sessions \u201csplit up with court\u201d, he says. \u201cFor most groups, they\u2019re able to go into the studio, draw the curtains, lock the door for a couple of weeks and make an album without having to go to the magistrate\u2019s court, for f**k sake.\u201d Yet \u201ceven though we thought that would be a hindrance, it ended up being the opposite\u201d.<\/p>\n

Things are happening, you write about them<\/p>\n

When Carey attended a hearing with a protest outside, he recorded a \u201cFree Mo Chara\u201d chant that ended up on the track Carnival. Its hook is: \u201cThere\u2019s a carnival coming to a town near you, \/ Kneecap versus the crown, so come here you, \/ step up and view their attraction, \/ circus of distractions, \/ away from their actions is where they will steer you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara developed the idea for the track while he was sitting in court, an experience that he says he found \u201chugely inspirational\u201d creatively.<\/p>\n

Writing songs under such pressure was a choice. A lot of eyes were on them, Mo Chara says; had Kneecap disappeared, and tried to process what was happening out of the spotlight, they would have lost the moment. \u201cIt\u2019s better to go with the current than against.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are happening, you write about them,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap adds.<\/p>\n

Over the year, Kneecap were becoming better known for their activism than for their music. But taking a stand is not unusual territory. \u201cWhat some people consider a protest, my family would probably consider a party,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says.<\/p>\n

\"Fenian:Fenian: Kneecap perform at 3Arena in Dublin in December 2025. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni <\/p>\n

He has an early memory of his father, the Irish-language activist Gear\u00f3id \u00d3 Caireall\u00e1in<\/a>, sticking Irish-language signs to bins. He died on the eve of one of Kneecap\u2019s biggest concerts, at the SSE Arena in Belfast, in 2024. A year later his grandmother, whom he and Mo Chara lived with, died on the eve of their first show at 3Arena<\/a>, in Dublin.<\/p>\n

As a teenager, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap went with his mother, Aoife N\u00ed Riain, who died by suicide in 2020, to remove Israeli products from the shelves at a local Asda supermarket. On the album\u2019s closing track, Irish Goodbye, he pays tribute to the beauty in the ordinariness of his relationship with her: going for walks, having lunch at a Clements coffee shop, holding her hand.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0A week with Kneecap: \u2018Liam \u00d3g doesn\u2019t like much attention. This is quite a lot of heat for him\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The first street protest Mo Chara remembers attending was one around Irish language rights. As a youth worker he protested against budget cuts affecting services for young people. When Kneecap won their case against the British government for unlawfully blocking<\/a> an arts-funding award, they donated the grant to two youth centres in Belfast: half to Gl\u00f3r na M\u00f3na<\/a>, off the Springfield Road, and half to RCity<\/a>, on the Shankill Road.<\/p>\n

On tour, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap often runs 10km in each city they\u2019re playing, to raise money for emergency food parcels for Gaza. Thirty per cent of the profits from Kneecap\u2019s jersey collaboration with Bohemians FC<\/a> \u2013 their manager, Daniel Lambert<\/a>, is chief commercial officer of the club \u2013 will go towards building a community music studio in the West Bank.<\/p>\n

With the pressure of \u201cthings happening\u201d over the past year, they must have needed the support of therapy. \u201cOf course,\u201d Mo Chara says. M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap nods: \u201cFor many long years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, how did they not lose their minds?<\/p>\n

\u201cI lose my mind at least once a week. Just get on with it. I don\u2019t believe anyone is fully keeping it together,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhite-knuckling for life,\u201d Mo Chara adds.<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap describes his approach: \u201cTake some psilocybin, freak out for a while, start crying, and then you\u2019re back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

That, plus training \u2013 he\u2019s a keen hurler \u2013 and really long baths.<\/p>\n

They also went to the small Japanese island of Miyako, to switch off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something attractive about the chaos as well,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says. <\/p>\n

Mo Chara is a little more tentative: \u201cIt can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very exciting, chaos,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can hold the flag next time,\u201d Mo Chara jokes, deadpan.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Hizbullah<\/a> flag he allegedly held aloft at a gig in Kentish Town, in north London, in November 2024.<\/p>\n

He was also alleged to have said \u201cUp Hamas! Up Hizbullah!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KneecapKneecap performing during the 2025 Glastonbury Festival. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA <\/p>\n

UK law classes both as terrorist organisations, banning not just membership but also any type of backing, including \u201cmoral support or approval\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given the atrocities that Hizbullah and Hamas<\/a> have been responsible for, can expressing support for them ever be legitimate political speech?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara replies, politely, that he doesn\u2019t want to be drawn into such a conversation and that all the group\u2019s statements on the matter are already public. (\u201cLet us be unequivocal,\u201d they posted on social media<\/a> in April 2025, \u201cwe do not, and have never, supported Hamas or Hezbollah. We condemn all attacks on civilians, always. It is never okay. We know this more than anyone, given our nation\u2019s history.\u201d)<\/p>\n

At the Coachella music festival, in California, in 2025 they projected the slogan \u201cF**k Israel. Free Palestine\u201d on to the stage backdrop. The crowd cheered, but the band believe the incident prompted a music-industry effort to ensure they faced consequences: the producer of their first album, Toddla T<\/a>, called out \u201cbackdoor pressure\u201d from a group of industry executives who allegedly wrote to Glastonbury seeking Kneecap\u2019s removal from the festival line-up. (Multiple high-profile artists subsequently signed a letter in support of the group\u2019s right to free expression.) <\/p>\n

Their Coachella performance also kept Kneecap in the spotlight of British authorities. On a visit to Belfast the day after the high court in London rejected the crown prosecution service\u2019s appeal against the Hizbullah-flag decision, Keir Starmer<\/a>, the British prime minister, told reporters: \u201cMy views on Kneecap are very well known in relation to what they stand for and what they say, which is completely intolerable.\u201d (\u201cF**k Keir Starmer, Netanyahu\u2019s b**ch and genocide armer,\u201d the group respond on Fenian, on the track Liars Tale.)<\/p>\n

People also dug through concert footage. \u201cThe only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP,\u201d one clip appeared to show a member of the group saying in November 2023. (The Metropolitan Police dropped its inquiry<\/a> after counter-terrorism officers examined the smartphone video, as the alleged offences happened outside the statutory time limit for prosecution.)<\/p>\n

According to Kneecap, the remark about Conservative politicians was taken out of context as part of a broader smear campaign.<\/p>\n

Is that defence an attempt to avoid accountability for things they\u2019ve said?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s to do with the context during a gig,\u201d Mo Chara says. \u201cIf you clip a certain comedian, you can make them look like the worst person in the world when, in actual fact, people in the room recognise what they were getting at.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe a performer is a little controversial, whatever it is: people know what they\u2019re getting into if it\u2019s a joke. We\u2019re obviously not advocating murdering MPs.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t start bombing people because you think they\u2019re conservative<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says: \u201cThere was some comedian who said they should bomb Glastonbury<\/a> because Jeremy Corbyn<\/a> was there. He\u2019s not brought to court over something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The live context, he adds, is about moments on stage within the broader concert, along with the way a remark is delivered.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are all such important things. You might laugh at the delivery of a complete piss-take, but nobody leaves a gig [murderous]. The joke is lost when you\u2019re not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s name, which they regard as ironic, also offends some people. The historian Liam Kennedy has written that it trivialises \u201cforms of repression within the Catholic nationalist areas under the brutal discipline of the Provisional IRA<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it!\u201d Mo Chara says. \u201cHe got it! He\u2019s on to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seriously, though: is there a point where irony crosses into the aestheticisation of atrocity?<\/p>\n

\"MostMost of Fenian came together in the studio, across sessions ‘split up with court’, says Mo Chara. Photograph: Tom Beard <\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d Mo Chara says, \u201cthese topics have been out of bounds for many years. When people aren\u2019t talking to each other, you fill that space with conflict.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understand that people who are perhaps a little older and a wee bit closer to [the Troubles] would probably be sensitive to it. Fair enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re doing with all of this craic is that we\u2019re normalising the craic with it. There are lads the same age as me from the Shankill I would never have spoken to, because it would have been rare that I would have had a chance to speak with someone from that background.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019re at a point now, I hope, where we can take the p**s. And this is happening. Maybe people who are older don\u2019t understand that. But there are young people taking the p**s out of each other with all of this craic, whereas at one point in their [older] generation that was violent.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us, we\u2019re all taking the p**s together. I think dialogue is extremely important. At the end of the day, just because you don\u2019t like something, and you don\u2019t understand it, doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s always for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says: \u201cI think a thing with academics is that they\u2019re looking at things from the outside. But, on the inside, they don\u2019t see that we\u2019re talking with people, people like Young Spencer at gigs with us\u201d \u2013 the unionist rapper has played as Kneecap\u2019s support act \u2013 \u201cor someone whose parents were maybe in the UDA\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Jessica Reynolds: \u2018Being in the Kneecap film opened my eyes to my Irish identity\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Ordinary young people don\u2019t think like history professors, he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only academics, or certain people who have ideas about our music, thinking it\u2019s going to cause division or barriers. In reality, that\u2019s not what it\u2019s like … It also does a disservice to young people today. And [some] people misunderstand it on purpose to have outrage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara takes over: \u201cI think it\u2019s important to mention with a person like Young Spencer, I don\u2019t agree with him and he doesn\u2019t agree with me. I\u2019m a republican and I suppose he\u2019s a unionist. But he is being authentically himself, and I respect that. I respect him. He has this tune, P.R.O.D., and I love that. I think that\u2019s unreal … Young people are moving on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn republicanism,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says, \u201csolidarity is important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working-class solidarity across identities and communities has always been a core message of Kneecap\u2019s. As Mo Chara once put it: \u201cI\u2019ve more in common with f**king Joe Bloggs from the Shankill Road, who\u2019s 23, than Sebastian Cockworth from Dublin, even though we\u2019ve got the same passports. I\u2019ve more in common with a working-class unionist than an upper-class Irish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kneecap say they want to respond to Leo Varadkar<\/a>, who criticised them last month for travelling to Cuba<\/a> as part of a humanitarian convoy to protest the embargo under which people of the island are suffering from shortages of food, medicine and fuel.<\/p>\n

The former taoiseach, who in the run-up to last year\u2019s Glastonbury festival defended Kneecap\u2019s right to be inappropriate, challenging and disruptive<\/a>, posted on social media that, while the group were in the country, they should call for the \u201crestoration of free speech, free assembly and a free press followed by real multi-party elections\u201d.<\/p>\n

When Varadkar was t\u00e1naiste, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap points out, he led a trade mission<\/a> to Saudi Arabia<\/a>, \u201cgetting photos with fellas\u201d responsible for \u201cbeheading people\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fair play to you for brining supplies to Cuba and opposing the embargo. When you’re there – might I suggest you call for the restoration of free speech, free assembly and a free press followed by real multi-party elections. Cubans haven’t been allowed to elect their own\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) March 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t doubt that there are problems there, big problems,\u201d Mo Chara says of Cuba. \u201cBut that\u2019s not why we were there. We were there because women who are pregnant can\u2019t get medication; they\u2019re looking for milk for their newborns. These are humanitarian problems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to go over and tell Cuba how to run itself, and solve all the political issues of Cuba. We were there strictly for reasons of humanitarian aid. It is short-term relief. We\u2019re not going to solve anything else … But I understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says: \u201cCollective punishment \u2013 regardless of what your opinion is on Cuba, Palestine, Iran<\/a> \u2013 is never acceptable. It is never justified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever Cuba does, or Iran does, whatever restrictions they have on free speech, if you don\u2019t agree with the governments in those countries, it doesn\u2019t make [collective punishment] justified.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"EmbargoEmbargo protest: Kneecap in Cuba in March. Photograph: Yamil Lage\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

In the Ireland of the mid 20th century, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap says, women were barred from working in the public sector after marriage. \u201cMy grandmother had to give up her job. But you can\u2019t start bombing people because you think they\u2019re conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kneecap had another appointment today, but it has been cancelled, so, with some extra time on their hands, Mo Chara and M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap retreat to a corner table downstairs.<\/p>\n

Their brothers arrive, and a succession of people walk in and out of the scene, including a man who shows a photograph on his phone of him dressed as DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed; two children in their school uniforms, who chat with Kneecap in Irish about their lives; and a fan from Indonesia who has a multicoloured \u201cTiocfaidh \u00c1r L\u00e1\u201d tattoo on her arm.<\/p>\n

The new album\u2019s introduction, \u00c9ire go Deo, is a tribute to champions of the Irish language. The track, which is based on a sample by the musician R\u00f3is, includes words from M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap\u2019s parents; their teacher Brend\u00e1n \u00d3 Fiach; the late writer Manch\u00e1n Magan<\/a>; and Ciar\u00e1n Mac Giolla Bh\u00e9in<\/a>, the president of Conradh na Gaeilge, who came to Kneecap\u2019s first gig. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re standing on the shoulders of these giants,\u201d Mo Chara says. (He also mentions the broadcaster R\u00f3n\u00e1n Mac Aodha Bhu\u00ed<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Outside, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap wants to draw attention to something on the wall. It\u2019s not the large Kneecap murals but something that\u2019s the result of campaigning by Irish speakers from the area. He points with a smile: the street sign is in Irish.<\/p>\n

Fenian is released by Heavenly Recordings<\/a> on Friday, May 1st; Kneecap play the AVA festival<\/a>, Belfast, on Saturday, May 30th<\/p>\n