Colin Sheridan: The British turned Kneecap into global stars with a terrorism charge
Britain’s instinct to silence rebellion has only helped amplify Irish voices — from Connolly to Corbyn to Kneecap
A new mural by graffiti artist Aches Huis has been erected in Grand Canal Dock, Dublin, of Kneecap musician Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins Photos
You have to hand it to our good friends and close neighbours in Britain, but they have a habit of making martyrs out of men who might otherwise be forgotten.
It’s only a little over 100 years since they chose to execute 15 leaders of the Easter Rising, a failed insurrection that initially had limited public support across Ireland, largely because the many deemed it irresponsible and cavalier.
Had Lloyd George let the leaders rot in Frongoch and Kilmainham, that might’ve been that and we’d all still be British. Drinking ale instead of stout. Swearing allegiance to King Charles III.
Instead, they tied a wounded James Connolly to a chair and executed the bejaysus out of him. The daft bastards.
Imagine if there was Twitter, or X, in 1916? It’s gas to think social media was not necessary to turn a bad rebellion into the birth of an actual republic.
Hamilton is great and all, but imagine Lankum collaborating with CMAT for the Easter Rising Broadway smash Gertie, the story of Gertie Murphy who served at the GPO during the rising and carried messages from post to post and cooked and rebelled in such a way that the Gloaming could easily pen a Broadway score and effortlessly win a Tony.
That’s Britain’s power. The hubris of an empire can turn a little-known start-up into a Fortune 500 company with the simple pull of a trigger
They’d even perform it for the king in the Royal Albert Hall, and he’d be none the wiser.
They were at it again this week, the London establishment, going all Lloyd George on it when all they needed was a little procrastination. A little Irish cousin at a wedding. Promising all sorts, but delivering absolutely nothing.
Imagine, Britain learned nothing from 800 years of colonising. If they learned anything, it should’ve been that there is no promise so spectacular that you cannot keep. Rebel, and we’ll kill you. (Note to Lloyd George: Don’t kill them).
Kneecap's Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh (centre) leaving through a crowd of supporters at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London after he appeared charged with a terrorism offence earlier this week. Picture: Jordan Pettitt/PA
Become cult Irish language rap artists, wave Hezbollah flags at a gig relatively few people are aware of, and we will arraign you, charge you with terrorist offences, and watch how your following swells from thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions.
Watch how you bring the one language your empire tried so psychopathically to eradicate into the chambers of your most precious court, and wince at how you are mocked and ridiculed for it.
I can guarantee you there were 10,000 Irish people who had never even heard of Mo Chara or Kneecap. And 100,000 English.
Yet Keir Starmer, a human rights lawyer no less, decided to give the Belfast boys the James Connolly treatment. He tied them to a metaphorical chair while they were crippled by youth and Irishness and — dare I say it if only to prove a point — irrelevance, and he only went and made them famous.
All of this while he has tap danced around arming, funding, and deploying troops (in spy planes) to an acknowledged genocide. The same genocide Kneecap have so admirably amplified and rejected.
Yeah. Daft, daft bastards, the British
I met Jeremy Corbyn last year. He seemed an incredibly decent bloke. Interesting and interested. In me. Can you believe it? Now, I don’t believe decency to be the only qualifying criteria to lead a country, especially one the size of England, but, Jesus Christ, you can’t help think.
I always defer to the Dianne Abbott anecdote about how, on one of her early dates with Corbyn, instead of bringing her to a wine bar commensurate with her evening attire, he whisked her off to Highgate Cemetery to visit Karl Marx’s grave.
Kneecap fans donned the Tricolour for the recent concert in Fairview Park, Dublin. Picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos
I like that story because it tells the story of a man unapologetically committed to something. And he believed that something to be good.
They Easter Rising’d Jeremy Corbyn too, the British. Maybe he would’ve been a useless prime minister — not because of some lack of ability, but perhaps, as I like to think it anyway, because he was too decent a human being.
Either way, due to the duplicity and callousness of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss and now, Keir Starmer, they have immortalised a man who otherwise seemed happiest representing his constituents in Islington. Daft, daft bastards. They never turn down an opportunity to martyr an underdog.
I’m not sure if musicians do album sleeves anymore, but if they do, Kneecap owe a heavy debt of gratitude to the British establishment, and should give them a mention.
Their talent may never have been in question, but their relevance surely was. An Irish language rap group from West Belfast. Today, the most famous band in the world.
