Nation + World

BY Alina Kulman ILLUSTRATION Sage Jennings DESIGN XingXing Shou

In 2017, Irish rapper Móglaí Bap (a pseudonym) spray- 2018 debut album 3CAG flow seamlessly between Irish traditional Irish rebel song, “Come Out Ye Black and painted the word cearta (‘right,’ in Irish) on a bus (also called Gaeilge, or Gaelic) and English, sometimes Tans.” Bap told i-D magazine that he had expected the station. Bap was graffitiing his hometown of Belfast within the same lyric. Their song “Incognito” even pushback: “Everything that came before us in Irish was during protests over the Irish Language Act, a law includes an Irish introduction lesson for beginners: so radio-friendly, and we’re like nothing that’s come that proposed giving the Irish language equal status “When you see your mate you say ‘Dé an fucking craic?’ before,” said Bap. “When we first put out music, we to English in Northern Ireland. When undercover / Nó ‘Cad é mar atá’ if you wanna be polite / You say had local politicians and stuff sharing it and praising it, police pulled up, Bap escaped while his friend was ‘Maith go leor!’ if you think he’s alright.” One lyric in going, ‘Oh this is Irish language hip-hop, this is great,’ arrested. His friend refused to speak English to the “C.E.A.R.T.A” seems to perfectly embody their cause: but they weren’t bothering to actually listen to it or cops, and spent the night in jail waiting for a trans- “raithneach dleathach in fuckin’ Éire Aontaithe,” which translate what we were actually saying.” lator. In the Republic of Ireland, every citizen has the translates to “legal weed in a fuckin’ United Ireland.” The status of the Irish language in the nationright to engage in government business in either Irish As Chara explained in an interview with The(091)Show, alist movement has been contentious for centuries, or English. The same right is not granted to people “The revolution’s fucked until we’re buying fucking especially during the violent sectarian conflict that like Bap in Northern Ireland, a province of the United gear [drugs] in Irish.” consumed the island from the 1960s to the 1990s, Kingdom, even as Irish republicans have long pushed The band has faced criticism for their controver- known as the “Troubles.” KNEECAP’s Irish raps for the legislative change. sial subjects and unapologetically nationalist rhetoric. combine a political message with humorous parodic

The incident inspired Bap and his bandmate Mo Members of the Democratic Unionist Party—Northern elements, creating a new shared revolutionary vocabChara (also not his real name) to write their 2017 hit, Ireland’s pro-British party—condemned KNEECAP’S ulary for Ireland’s young people, who have grown up “C.E.A.R.T.A”—the same word he had graffitied earlier music and concerts as “hate-filled” in 2019. Not even in relative peace. After attending a KNEECAP perforthat year. Bap and Chara, known as KNEECAP (along a week later, bouncers for their concert at University mance, Irish photographer James Forde told Vice, “I’d with their collaborator, the balaclava-clad DJ Próvaí), College Dublin escorted them offstage for cheering imagine that about 90 percent of the people at the regularly combine humor, drug references, and anti- revolutionary slogans. RTÉ, the national Irish radio concert didn’t understand the lyrics, or wouldn’t be British sentiment in their songs. On “Your Sniffer Dogs broadcaster, banned their music in 2018 for its explicit able to sing along to them. If you don’t speak Gaelic— are Shite,” they oscillate between mocking the police content. KNEECAP joyously responded to the political which most of us don’t—it would be difficult to follow for unsuccessful drug busts and the simple message condemnation with an Instagram video of Mo Chara along or understand sentence for sentence. But then of “We want our country back.” Songs on KNEECAP’s dancing, middle finger raised, to an EDM remix of a you have this pride that they’ve brought out in Irish

people.” He added, “Now they go to a KNEECAP gig Ireland, 1972-2008, argued that prisoners’ secret and the IRA. and they wanna speak Irish with their friends.” illegal campaigns to teach each other Irish led to “radi- KNEECAP challenges the narrative of a sortcalized” nationalist culture. These prisoners also often ed-out, peaceful Irish political situation, even without +++ adopted ‘Gaelicized’ names, reclaiming their heritage. current violent conflict. In “H.O.O.D.,” they angrily Sinn Féin, the political party linked to the IRA, encour- relay stereotypes of Irish Catholics—“Low life scum, Bap and Chara, both in their twenties, grew up in West aged those who believed in the nationalist cause to that’s what they say about me”—and reference Belfast speaking Irish. Their experience as native learn the language with a clear message: “Learn Irish, historic employment discrimination favoring unionist speakers, however, is somewhat unusual today. About speak Irish, be Irish.” Protestants—“all the best jobs are taken by the 40 percent of Irish people speak some Irish, but only doggies.” They shot parts of the music video for their two percent speak it on a daily basis. The numbers are +++ song “Amach Anocht” (“Out Tonight”) at a food bank. even lower in Northern Ireland, where less than 10 “We’re showing the reality that there are food banks in percent of the population speak any Irish at all. For some young Irish people today, the two decades Belfast,” Bap explained in an Irish-language TV inter-

The history of the Irish language is entrenched in since the end of the Troubles have led to a sense of view. “We come from a working-class culture.” He the history of British colonialism, as Ireland is often almost romantic distance from the actual conflict, added, “We use this humor to convey that message in referred to as Britain’s “first colony.” The British creating opportunities to reinterpret Irish republi- a way that people will hear.” conquered and confiscated land from Irish kingdoms canism. KNEECAP’s members are part of that gener- When KNEECAP rallies their crowds to revoluin the 17th century and encouraged English-speaking ation; in an interview with the Irish Times, Chara tionary slogans, it is clear that many Irish youth share and Protestant settlers to move there from England described himself and Bap as “Good Friday babies,” their views. The band claims to not be aligned with and Scotland. There have been Irish rebellions against referring to the 1998 agreement that officially ended one specific political ideology or group, and once British rule since the beginning of this colonization. the Troubles. Bap noted that their incendiary personas jokingly described their project as “active nihilism.” In the 19th century, Irish nationalism coalesced as a are, to a degree, characters: “We can look at it with a Yet it is their young fans’ demographic who are voting movement, fueled by the failures of British rule during different perspective. We didn’t experience it first hand in growing numbers for Sinn Féin, the republican the Great Famine—known as the Irish Potato Famine in the way our parents did. They had a traumatic expe- party in parliament, due to its left-wing social policies outside of Ireland—and by battles for national sover- rience. We can detach ourselves from it and look at it in and motivating nationalist message. Sinn Féin has eignty across Europe. Campaigns for “Home Rule” a more whole context.” also been a fierce proponent of the Irish Language Act, coincided with cultural and linguistic revival efforts A slightly earlier generation of popular musical and caused legislative deadlock from 2017 to January in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; a nationalist groups in Ireland developed a kind of ‘post- 2020 over the language’s legal status. The party’s movement of mainly Catholic republicans, who sought modern Irony’ or ‘memeification’ of the IRA. In the efforts drew massive support from Irish-speaking to establish an ‘Irish Ireland’ separate from British rule. Rubberbandits’ 2011 song “Up Da Ra,” they confidently youth activists, who held protests outside of Stormont, Nationalists at the turn of the 20th century believed list celebrities, including Quentin Tarantino, Dr. Dre, the Irish parliament complex. The gridlock was only resuscitating the Irish language was key to recovering and Winona Ryder, as official IRA members. The song resolved with a deal that appointed commissioners lost national pride and reversing cultural Anglicization. ends with an insistent statement: “The Rubberbandits for both the Irish language and Ulster-Scots, a dialect

Irish republicans proclaimed independence for the are in the IRA / I’m telling you now, we are in the IRA, spoken by descendants of Scottish settlers, which has entire island in 1916, launching the Easter Rising rebel- we are the IRA, you know what I mean, yeah? / Do you become increasingly associated with the Protestant lion against British rule. Although the initial insurrec- know the IRA? That’s us!” The Rubberbandits are, in cause. tion failed, the brutality of the British response—their reality, a comedy duo from Limerick. The lyrics’ jocuforces killed civilians and executed 16 Irish republican larity represents a very different approach from songs +++ leaders—contributed to popular support for indepen- in the ’80s and ’90s, when the violence of the Troubles dence during the ensuing conflict. After the Irish War was a daily threat. Hits like The Cranberries’ “Zombie,” Brexit looms over political and cultural tensions of Independence, ceasefire agreements in 1921 led to or U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” lament the emotional in Northern Ireland, as the United Kingdom’s full the partitioned Ireland of today: the Republic of Ireland and physical wounds inflicted upon both sides during separation from the European Union is set to take in the south is independent, while Northern Ireland the conflict. In “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” Bono cries full effect January 1, 2021. Since the Good Friday remains a province of the UK. The Irish Republic out, “There’s many lost, but tell me who has won / The Agreement, the land border dividing the island of sought to protect the Irish language by designating trench is dug within our hearts / And mothers, children, Ireland has remained “invisible,” as checkpoints and Gaeltacht regions, mainly on the country’s western brothers, sisters torn apart.” security forces were removed. However, the UK has coast, where Irish is the predominant spoken language. U2’s mournful tone has faded in the current Irish not yet found a mutually satisfactory solution for the In Northern Ireland, the dominant Protestant unionist music landscape. KNEECAP, like the Rubberbandits, Northern Irish border, and political debates continue party suppressed and banned the Irish language, asso- are not IRA members. Outside of their rap careers, over whether there will be economic tariffs or border ciating it with “traitors,” as part of their treatment of Chara and Bap are community activists; they’ve hosted searches. Northern Ireland police chief Simon Catholics as second-class citizens. Black Panther-inspired free breakfasts and protested Byrne argued in late 2019 that a hard border would

Tensions over enfranchisement and British control for Irish-language rights. And yet their choruses scream be a “fueling point” for paramilitary groups and of Northern Ireland continued throughout the 20th “Brits out” and their tour posters depict Democratic their recruitment. The Irish police have even begun century. However, it wasn’t until the 1969 riots in Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster tied to a rocket. compiling lists of IRA sympathizers in preparation for Belfast and Derry that the Provisional Irish Republican The violent imagery seems to have a wink and a nudge potential border violence. And now, with COVID-19 Army (IRA) became a powerful guerrilla revolutionary attached (in fact, Bap and Chara referred to that poster travel restrictions, border policing is at its heaviest force. From the 1970s onward, the IRA was known as a piece of “fine art”). since the Troubles ended. for violent tactics, including bombings and murders Chara and Bap also direct their mocking tone In a video with Joe UK in February, Mo Chara said of British targets, which ultimately killed over 3,000 to satirize some of the IRA’s violent antics. After the that given the uncertainty of Brexit and the growing people. KNEECAP’s name comes from the IRA’s brutal ceasefire with the British in the ’90s, a faction of the IRA popularity of Sinn Féin, “it’s a cocktail of everything. treatment of suspects within their own communi- turned their focus towards limiting the spread of drugs We’re slowly on our way to a united Ireland, which I ties. Vigilantes would ‘kneecap’ people—non-lethally in their community and executing alleged dealers. In think is inevitable.” Bap added, “As long as you leave shooting the backs of their knees or other limbs—as the music video for the intro song to 3CAG, “Your All our country, we’re not gonna be resentful. We might punishment for alleged crimes or disloyalty to the Legitimate Targets,” KNEECAP constructs a fake IRA let you come into Ireland, like 200 people per year. nationalist movement. press statement, threatening drug dealers for their We’re pretty nice, I think.”

The Irish language galvanized nationalist unity “excessive, hedonistic, toxic lifestyles.” The video then during the Troubles as thousands of people involved cuts to the album art: an illustration of Bap and Chara ALINA KULMAN B’21 dreams of raithneach with the IRA and other republican paramilitary groups smoking joints in the Irish countryside, surrounded by dleathach in Éire Aontaithe. were arrested and sent to prison. Irish linguist Diarmait images of a cannabis leaf, a drug baggie, and a Molotov Mac Giolla Chríost’s book, Jailtacht: The Irish Language, cocktail. Ultimately, Bap and Chara spurn all anti-drug Symbolic Power and Political Violence in Northern authorities, whether that’s the police, club bouncers, or