Rap act Kneecap who flirt with IRA slogans and violent republican imagery booked to play Glastonbury music festival

The group are slated to appear on the Woodsies Stage, one of the smaller ones, and relatively low down the bill.

Another Irish act appearing at the festival are Fontaines DC, whose lead singer Grian Chatten recently collaborated with Kneecap on the song ‘Better Way to Live’, and who has previously been quoted as saying he “really likes” Mary Lou McDonald.

Kneecap have been going from success to success worldwide in the past six months, since they made a semi-autobiographical movie about themselves which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in the USA.

The film was funded by 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.

• Paddy Kielty's Late Late Show on RTE criticised by Ann Travers for politically 'one-sided' guests after interview with republican rap trio Kneecap

They were booked to play at the SXSW (South by SouthWest) Festival in the USA but pulled out due to the festival’s links with the US military (a sponsor) and arms firms.

In the last week the group has been promoted by BBC Radio 1 and by the Irish News (“Kneecap: six songs to listen to first from the west Belfast trio”).

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).

They have referred to England as “the land of stolen treasures” and the English language as “the language of the oppressor”.

Their Twitter account has recently carried a quote from IRA icon Bobby Sands, as well as one referencing the famous IRA slogan “we only need to be lucky once”.

The group describe themselves as republicans and are very hostile to police in their lyrics and promo imagery, with one of their logos being a burning PSNI Land Rover (though the main one is a scowling figure in a balaclava).

They also refer to the PSNI as “the RUC” despite the RUC having disbanded in 2001.

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

During the Troubles, republican paramilitaries murdered over 2,000 people including over 300 police and ex-police (with dissident republican groups continuing to try and shoot and bomb officers today) in a campaign which disproportionately targeted Protestants (they killed about twice as many Protestants as Catholics).

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.”