{"id":563739,"date":"2026-05-03T09:02:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/563739\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T09:02:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T09:02:22","slug":"we-understand-that-religious-divide-serves-absolutely-nobody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/563739\/","title":{"rendered":"We understand that religious divide serves absolutely nobody"},"content":{"rendered":"

We meet Kneecap<\/a> backstage at Kingston\u2019s Circuit ahead of an intimate album launch show on St George\u2019s Day (no reader, they do not celebrate). It\u2019s been about a year and half since we last spoke.\u00a0\u201cA pretty uneventful few months I must say,\u201d jokes Mo Chara, given the lifetime of headlines and controversy the Belfast rap trio have packed into that time, and the hours he spent in front of a judge for a now thrown-out terrorism charge <\/a>at the hands of the UK government.<\/p>\n

They fought the case with everything they had, and now again with their bold and ballsy new album \u2018Fenian<\/a>\u2018 \u2013 the term itself an act of defiance.\u00a0\u201cIt originally came from Irish folklore,\u201d M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap offers. \u201cIt was a band of warriors in old Irish stories that date back 1,500 years. Then it was repurposed for several rebellions during the 18th and 19th Century, then in modern times it was used as a derogatory slur for Irish nationalists. When you call someone a \u2018fenian\u2019, you\u2019re suggesting that they\u2019re backwards or uncivilised. In the North or when Irish people came to London, they\u2019d say \u2018You Fenian\u2026\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

We assure Kneecap that swearing is acceptable on NME.<\/p>\n

\u201cC**t,\u201d calmly offers the balaclava-clad DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed. Fair enough. Now reclaiming \u2018Fenian\u2019 as a synonym for \u201cthe warrior\u201d, Kneecap are once again showing that the most feared weapon in their arsenal is \u201cthe power of language,\u201d as M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap tells us, flipping how \u201ccertain language is used when you have a coloniser country and an oppressed people\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap,Kneecap, 2026. Credit: Tom Beard<\/p>\n

Fresh from the hype around their stellar debut album \u2018Fine Art<\/a>\u2018 and acclaimed BAFTA-winning self-titled biopic<\/a>, the band told us<\/a> that they were making good progress with their sophomore record back in summer 2024, but it seems life had other plans. Their standard pro-Gaza rhetoric lead by the messaging of \u201cFuck Israel, Free Palestine\u201d caught the attention of the wider world \u2013 and Sharon Osbourne \u2013 when they played Coachella 2025<\/a>, causing one hell of a shit-storm and chain reaction that would lead to the terror charge from a past London gig and for the three trouble-starters to become a divisive talking point.<\/p>\n

A whole album was scrapped, and they decamped to Streatham in London to spend two months on fresh material with \u201ceccentric scientist\u201d Dan Carey (Fontaines D.C.<\/a>, Wet Leg<\/a>, Foals<\/a>) to bring out \u201ca musical complexity\u201d to match the drama that was playing out in the headlines and the scale of attention the band were getting.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we had the court case during all this and the Wembley Arena concert<\/a> during the seven weeks we were in the studio,\u201d recalls M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap. \u201cDan was at the gig and trying to find sounds that would fill those rooms\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt hit that next level up as a more mature-sounding album, but still authentic to Kneecap,\u201d Mo Chara continued. \u201cMost artists when making an album maybe have most of it written or are able to go to the studio and lock themselves away for a few months, whereas we were getting dragged on the news to the magistrates court and had Wembley, which was a huge deal at the time. These things that should have been a hindrance on paper, it was more of an inspiration on the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap'sKneecap\u2019s Mo Chara arrives at Woolwich Crown Court, London (Photo by James Manning\/PA Images via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Watch our full interview with the band at the top of the page, or read on below as Kneecap open up about their battle with the government, the real issue of anti-Semitism, balancing their personal with the political on their best album yet, and who might play their pal Keir Starmer in the sequel to their movie.<\/p>\n

NME: Hello Kneecap. The crosshairs really zoomed in on you after Coachella. How would you describe how things were going for you guys before and after that?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cThings were obviously going very well. Things went well after Coachella as well. We never did anything different at Coachella \u2013 it\u2019s the same gig we did all year. Obviously, we were in America, and there were thousands of young Americans shouting \u2018Free Palestine\u2019. The mainstream media in America have tried to hide away the Palestinian movement. There was no disguising the fact that there were young Americans in solidarity with Palestine, and that was something that the mainstream media could not handle.\u201d<\/p>\n

DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed: \u201cThe people who were outside the court were the same people supporting Palestine Action. They saw censorship happening and abuses of power and went, \u2018Right, if this is allowed to carry on, then who\u2019s next?\u2019 Not challenging those abuses of power would be a dereliction of their actions. As soon as you try to put a blockade on art and people expressing themselves, then it\u2019s a slippery slope into fascism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you feel like the dialogue has moved on much? We just had The Strokes use their Coachella headline set to make a statement<\/a> against the US government and the destruction of the last university in Gaza, and 1,000+ artists pushing to boycott Eurovision<\/a> over Israel is no small thing\u2026<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cThe limitations of what bands think they can do has definitely shifted. Even at Coachella, there were other bands who spoke out for Palestine as well, but they weren\u2019t in the news. There has been a shift because there\u2019s more solidarity between the bands. It feels safer to put yourself out there. Before this, it was quite isolating if you spoke out for Palestine. That\u2019s the whole reason for that: to make you feel more insecure in your job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap,Kneecap, In Conversation with NME. Credit: NME\/Still<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap,Kneecap, In Conversation with NME. Credit: NME\/Still<\/p>\n

As for the court case and the events that led to it: if there\u2019s a potential would-be Kneecap fan out there who wants to be part of this but has a big question mark looming over what happened with the flag and the accusations<\/a>, is there anything you\u2019d like to say to put it in context?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cWe\u2019ve spoken about this a million times and put out press statements. Let\u2019s just say we don\u2019t pick flags up anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

And you said you don\u2019t always know what\u2019s going on<\/a> when the lights are down?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cOh, Jesus, it\u2019s impossible. It\u2019s hard to even see what\u2019s happening. A gig feels like it\u2019s over before you know it; you fucking barely remember anything. I\u2019m not going to get into it because we\u2019ve talked about it already. Obviously, we won, and we expected to win. It just shows how ludicrous the whole case is. They threw millions of pounds at it<\/a>, tried for an appeal and lost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you take years and years of gigs and compact it into 20 seconds of a satirical band on stage\u2026 You can cut any comedian on Earth into a five-second clip, and they can look like the worst person in the world. You\u2019ve got to put things in context. There\u2019s never ever been an issue at a Kneecap gig, and a Kneecap member has never been convicted of any crime in any country ever, so we\u2019ll start, surely but slowly, moving on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap,Kneecap, 2026. Credit: Tom Beard<\/p>\n

With the things you say at the gigs and the atmosphere there, combined with what\u2019s really in the songs and the statements you put out, would you say you\u2019re actually an anti-hate band?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cOf course. We come from Belfast, we understand sectarian violence, we understand sectarianism, we understand that religious divide serves absolutely nobody. Anti-Semitism is a real issue, and it\u2019s growing at the moment. It\u2019s something that genuinely needs to be talked about and needs to be tackled, but what happens is when you have the Zionist lobby labelling bands and actors as anti-Semitic just because they speak out against Israel, you\u2019re starting to water down that term. We need to be talking about that term a lot more because it\u2019s on the rise all over the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are obviously not anti-Semitic. I think anyone with any right mind knows that. We don\u2019t stand for any kind of hate at gigs or any kind of fascist ideologies. We\u2019re from Belfast, we\u2019re Irish, it\u2019s not in our nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was it cool to be enemy of the state for a minute?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cIt\u2019s [DJ Pr\u00f3vai\u2019s] turn next.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cI think there\u2019s a good tradition of English governments choosing Irish people as enemies, and there\u2019s a good history there of Irish people being criminalised for crimes they never committed. So it\u2019s pretty cool. We\u2019re not the first Irish people to be called terrorists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Second albums are difficult enough as it is, but did the pressure enter your mind of all this going on and having to make a statement record that backed up your politics and the headlines?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cI didn\u2019t see it as pressure. Obviously, we do thrive in the chaos, and sometimes it\u2019s easier to deal with things when it\u2019s so chaotic, and you\u2019re onto the next thing. We understood that there were a lot of eyes on this album. Second album syndrome is quite intense for a lot of bands.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew if you were a Kneecap fan and had been watching what had been going on for the last year, you\u2019d be very disappointed if there was no mention of it in the album. Of course there is, and we wouldn\u2019t let you down.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an album that\u2019s as political as it is personal. Let\u2019s start with \u2018An Ra\u2019, where you thank the UK for their contributions to Irish life:\u00a0\u201cJimmy Saville and HP Sauce, now that is a worthy cause\u201d. That\u2019s going to look good on a t-shirt\u2026<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cWe\u2019re in enough trouble as it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cI love brown sauce, though, on sausages and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cBrown sauce and free healthcare. Other than that, that\u2019s it. We\u2019re keeping that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cIt was written as a piss-take about how much we\u2019re going to miss the United Kingdom when we eventually get a United Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cThe joke is that when colonising countries talk about \u2018civilising\u2019 other countries, like they did with Ireland or Kenya \u2013 so we\u2019re playing with that idea that we were actually quite civilised before they got there.\u201d<\/p>\n

DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more civil than genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cJesus Christ, there\u2019s our t-shirt. If you translate the UK into Irish, it\u2019s \u2018RA\u2019, which looks like the \u2018RA so it\u2019s a play on words for The IRA. We\u2019re expecting people who don\u2019t speak Irish to become outraged, thinking it\u2019s a song about the IRA, when we can actually explain to them that\u2019s actually a love letter for the United Kingdom. We thought you\u2019d like that!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Kneecap,Kneecap, 2026. Credit: Tom Beard<\/p>\n

And with \u2018Smugglers & Scholars\u2019, what did you want to tell people about the real Ireland?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cIt\u2019s this idea that Americans have of Ireland that it\u2019s all poetry and clovers, and the line is that it\u2019s actually raincoats and police Land Rovers. That\u2019s the idea that we had of Ireland growing up in an urban setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cIt\u2019s a reply to those American movies and what their perception of Ireland is. Wild Mountain Thyme or something. The whole movie, she had dirt on her face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cChristopher Walken is in that and doesn\u2019t even try to do the accent. He knows how shit that film is. Irish Wish with Lindsay Lohan, did you watch that? It\u2019s offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Carnival\u2019 is banger, dealing with your trial and subsequent reaction from the government and media in a very head-on way\u2026<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cThe \u2018carnival of distraction\u2019 is the term that we ran with. It was unfortunate and against our will, but we became part of that. We became a cog in the wheel of that distraction. Talking about us in that court case did highlight Gaza slightly, but that time spent talking about us could have been spent doing actual journalism and talking about the actual genocide in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why do you think politicians are so obsessed with artists saying things rather than the origins of what they\u2019ve said?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cIt\u2019s the same thing as why is it more controversial when a band goes on stage compared to a genocidal regime where the prime minister of that country has an arrest warrant against them? We\u2019re not the only people calling it a genocide, the ICJ are. It\u2019s always, \u2018Do you condemn Hamas?\u2019 They\u2019re never asking politicians if they condemn the IDF.\u201d<\/p>\n

DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed: \u201cThey\u2019re always looking for their column inches as well and trying to latch on to anything in the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cIt\u2019s that need for sensationalism. Keir Starmer giving an interview about us playing Glastonbury<\/a> to The Sun? Why would he do that? That\u2019s weird. He gets to pretend to be outraged about something that doesn\u2019t really have an impact or any repercussions for him, but it makes him look good. We have this dysfunctional symbiotic relationship with politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

You went the mile on this album to write the song \u2018Palestine\u2019. How did you tackle the essence of capturing something so profound into a song?<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cObviously, with everything going on, politics was going to be quite important for the album, and we thought it was quite important to have a representation from Palestine on there. We\u2019d heard of Fawzi from Ramallah, and we connected with him. It was something we wanted to develop, to build on that connection between Belfast and Palestine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been that way in Ireland for a long time: this international solidarity. Because we\u2019re musicians and artists, this is a way for us to build that bridge. There\u2019s no better people to speak about Palestine than Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most personal songs on the album is \u2018Irish Goodbye\u2019, which is about M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap\u2019s mother\u2019s depression<\/a>, taking her own life, and the courage she gave you. What did it mean to you to put that into song, and what did you get out of it?<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cWhen someone passes away, someone close to you, it takes a long time to remember them with nice memories if they\u2019re going through hard times. It\u2019s been five or six years. I didn\u2019t have a plan to make a tune about it, but somebody sent me a documentary with my ma\u2019 in it and us as children. It was the first time I\u2019d seen us happy in a video, and that had a profound effect on me. It helped me remember the happy times, so this song was reflecting on those. All the happy times are the boring, mundane stuff where you miss somebody, never the big moments. It\u2019s always just walking around a park and the small things that become really big.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really nice for me to go back in my memory and recreate that in my head with the song. It was a nice way to reinforce those memories.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Your parents crop up a couple of times on the record for their activism with the language. There\u2019s been a nearly 400 per cent rise in pupils in Irish-medium education over 25 years, and over 1million active learners on Duolingo learning the language. What does it mean to you when people talk about \u2018the Kneecap effect\u2019 with people picking up their native tongue?<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cOn the opening track \u2018\u00c9ire go Deo\u2019, this is an ode to the people that gave Kneecap this opportunity, who set the framework, who started the schools and the cultural centres, the youth clubs. We just feel like Kneecap is part of the wider movement. We\u2019re working with kids, sports teams and all this stuff. If I were 16 years old now and saw an Irish language film in the cinema, it\u2019s very important that you feel that your culture is valued and seen in these mainstream areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the band started, M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap was active in promoting the Irish language through music, DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed was a teacher, and Mo Chara was training to be a youth worker. What was it about the spirit of who you were before Kneecap, why you needed this outlet, and how much of that you still carry today?<\/p>\n

DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed: \u201cThose three things you mentioned all kind of align in the language movement. When we all started out, we all loved the language. We were in our early twenties, and all found each other. Something happened in Belfast, and we were all drawn towards it. We became this big friendship group. Lots of people were leaving school and didn\u2019t get the chance to speak the Irish language in a social setting. We found each other just at a time when we needed that in a social outlet.<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic, partying and talking in Irish was what it all revolved around. All of those things lined up nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cWith the youth work and stuff, there was that need for a social space. Any kind of movement needs social spaces. People were going to school, a lot of people were leaving school with a basic grasp of Irish, and then weren\u2019t really using it again. We were kind of creating that social setting. That\u2019s when I started volunteering, and it was out of that ethos that Kneecap grew: that need to see the subculture represented. Once we all bumped heads, this was the natural progression to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cIt was a grown collective self-esteem that Kneecap came out of \u2013 this idea that we do deserve the same rights as everyone else. Because we had these jobs as youth workers, teachers or working in events, we thought that we should have art and culture in the Irish language. That seed was planted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"KneecapKneecap performing at Glastonbury 2025. Credit: Andy Ford for NME<\/p>\n

What do you want now? How do you imagine the future for Kneecap?<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cI\u2019m happy to be making music and having the opportunity to go around the world and meet with people from different indigenous cultures. That\u2019s such a cool thing. Not just in Ireland, but people all around the world are going towards their native, indigenous language. That\u2019s something that we can hopefully connect more with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cI\u2019m just hoping that we can keep doing what we\u2019re doing and not think too far ahead. We\u2019ll keep reminding ourselves of how lucky we are and long may it last.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you feel like the next to undermine you could be just around the corner?<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cI don\u2019t know. I try not to think about these things. If it is, it\u2019s going to be out of our hands anyway. We\u2019ll just do what we can. As long as people listen to us and as long as long as there\u2019s a demand there, then we\u2019ll just continue to create.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cWe started Kneecap with a lack of self esteem. We thought nobody would be interested in Kneecap outside of our 10 friends. Maybe something was changing and people were looking for something more authentic. Over the years our confidence grew and Kneecap is something that we\u2019ll continue to work on and bring us to new places around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed: \u201cHopefully new generations will take some more self esteem and take it to the next level as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cIf we\u2019re an inspiration for other bands to do a similar thing in Irish, then even better. That will be a great conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the very least, you\u2019ve got some great material for Kneecap: The Movie 2.<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cAnd we\u2019re going to franchise it like The Fast And The Furious, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mo Chara: \u201cIf the money\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s going to play Keir Starmer?<\/p>\n

DJ Pr\u00f3va\u00ed: \u201cQuasimodo.\u201d<\/p>\n

M\u00f3gla\u00ed Bap: \u201cSharon Osbourne.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Fenian\u2019 by Kneecap is out now.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We meet Kneecap backstage at Kingston\u2019s Circuit ahead of an intimate album launch show on St George\u2019s Day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-563739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}