Mairia Cahill: ‘There’d be less romanticism around Kneecap if they were loyalists’

She was commenting as the rap trio from west Belfast continue to go from success to success, with their latest coup being securing a spot at Glastonbury – arguably the world’s premier music festival.

The group are slated to appear on the Woodsies Stage, one of the smaller ones.

Kneecap have been enjoying some intense limelight in the last few months, ever since they made a semi-autobiographical movie about themselves which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the USA (using about £1.5m in public money).

Since then they have appeared on RTE’s The Late Late Show with Paddy Kielty and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon in the USA.

They are also set to play the massive Reading and Leeds Festivals this summer.

Kneecap is made up of Mogali Bap, Mo Chara, and DJ Provai (pronounced “Provie”, like the Provisional IRA), and the group’s embrace of IRA-style slogans and imagery, plus their lyrics about drugs binges and hatred for the police, have been well documented by the News Letter.

Ms Cahill has written previously about attending a gig by the group at the Feile an Phobail, during which – to much laughter – the group falsely accused a public figure of being a paedophile, then launched into a rendition of their song “Get you Brits Out” with pre-teen children in the audience singing along.

She told the News Letter: “I don’t think they should be held up as an example for anything in the west Belfast community, given their lyrics on drugs in the first instance – particularly since so many young people have taken their lives as a result of drug-taking, and the exploitation that exists still within the communities they purport to represent.

"And secondly I don’t believe their political knowledge is as developed as it could be.

"Their whole raison d’etre is to be deliberately controversial. That’s got nothing to do with art or politics or anything else, it is simply about making money.

"If people are foolish enough to go and listen to them, they’re foolish enough to listen to them.

"I’m not into censorship either. But I’ve been very, very clear about why I don’t think outfits like the West Belfast Festival should book them."

What does she think the reaction would be if this was a loyalist group flirting with UVF iconography?

"I think there’d be less romanticism around it, I think it’s a very good point."

More details about the band can be found here:

• Kneecap: Who are Belfast's republican Irish language rap trio and why are they labelled controversial? A breakdown of the group's background, lyrics and antics

Glastonbury itself has a “diversity” policy, as follows: “The Festival is proactive in embedding diversity and inclusion throughout all that we do, and discrimination of any sort – whether it be on the grounds of race, gender, ethnicity, visible or unseen disabilities, sexual orientation, heritage, religion, age, family status, social class or education – is not tolerated."

Under a series of ‘peace’ symbols on its webiste, it goes on to add: “Our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion initiatives include bias awareness training for all staff, a bespoke Area Organisers group focussed on Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, and a ring-fenced £50k fund for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion projects ranging from work with traveller communities, black and minority youth groups, female, non-binary and transgender people and those from a low socio-economic background.”

• ‘YOU DON’T GET IT’

Mo Chara has previously told the BBC: “We’re glad there’s peace now. We’re not trying to stoke any fires.”

Kneecap often respond to criticism by saying that those complaining are not “getting the joke”.

In a recent BBC interview, member Moglai Bap said: "There's a lot of playfulness and a lot fun and craic, if you're offended by it then you're just not getting the joke…

"It's very easy for politicians to go to a paper and give a quote about what they think we're doing, we didn't establish sectarianism and we're not fuelling it either.

"We're not creating art for controversy's sake, we live in a place where people are quite easily offended by certain topics.

"We don't set out for that, it's the same thing when you're speaking the Irish language in the north, that it's [perceived as] some sort of political statement.

"But we're just trying to build a youth culture around the language."

When the News Letter has tried to elicit responses from the band in the past, its manager Daniel Lambert has said: “There’s journalism and then there’s the News Letter Belfast [sic]. Nobody from Kneecap will be providing comment to your ‘paper’, ever.”

Meanwhile Mr Lambert has previously told RTE: “I think controversy is subjective, actually. Especially in the north, people love to be outraged.

"Take the idea of DJ Provai; I think it’s quite satirical in terms of wearing a green, white and orange balaclava.”

On the subject of the group’s burning police vehicle, he said: “I think Naomi Long came out, the Minister of Justice, saying this was stoking sectarian tensions, and the lads’ response to me was perfect.

"They said: ‘Well if you ask somebody on the other side of that wall how they’d like to see an RUC jeep, they might say the same thing’.

"So the lads are totally non-sectarian.”