Féile An Phobail: West Belfast Festival band - Shebeen not Wolfe Tones - leads chants of IRA slogan ‘Oooh-Ah-Up-The-Ra’

However no authorities have taken any action and complaints from families whose loved ones were killed in terror attacks during the Troubles have fallen on deaf ears.

The band Itself has remained defiant on the matter in media interviews and organisers of the festival have apparently taken no action on the matter.

The chant has been used by the Republic of Ireland women's soccer team in their celebrations after beating Scotland in 2021.

A young south Armagh woman chanted it in the face of shocked former First Minister Arlene Foster (whose father was shot in the head by by the IRA) in 2022.

The Charity Commission says it has received 15 complaints about the chanting at the festival over the past six years, none of which have been upheld.

However this year there was no evidence the Wolfe Tones played their controversial song.

Instead the complaints relate to the band Shebeen, singing the Sam Song.

The song opens: "Well I have been a Provo now for fifteen years or more..”.

In another line, it continues: "The Brits will never leave us (until when?) until they're blown away."

The five verse song ends with the same chorus each time: "Tiocfaidh ár lá, sing up the 'RA (Ooh, ah, up the 'RA! Ooh ah up the 'RA!)"

In a video clip which appears to be at the festival at the weekend, four children are seen dancing with their hands in the air as the band sings 'Ooh-Ah-Up-The-RA' a total of fourteen times.

North Belfast DUP MLA Brian Kingston said the festival organisers should explain their actions.

“The organisers of Feile regularly claim their events are inclusive and welcoming to everyone,” he said. “If they truly wished that to be the case, then they would move away from regularly and deliberately booking acts who they know will engage in such chanting

“The organisers of Feile need to explain why they continue to facilitate this yearly ritual of sectarianism and why they are happy for such behaviour to be normalised and passed on to a new generation who were spared from witnessing the heinous violence of the IRA first-hand.”

Ann McClure, TUV party secretary and West Belfast spokesperson linked such singing with rioting by nationalist youths in Londonderry last weekend.

“When you continue to invite a rebel band to the concert which marks the culmination of your event when you know they will sing songs of this nature it is a telling insight into the mind of the organisers.

“The event makes a mockery of claims that the festival is cross community and it is high time that media outlets stopped the pretence that it is such.

“Society needs to start showing respect to victims, not constantly seeking to retraumatise them. It also feeds violence in the present day. Media cannot provide uncritical coverage to a group like Kneecap one day and then express shock at Republican rioting in Londonderry the next.”

Shebeen, Féile An Phobail Limited and Sinn Fein were all invited to comment on the issues.

The Charity Commission regulates the West Belfast Festival in that it is organised by registered charity, Féile An Phobail Limited.

The commission says it currently has two live complaints in relation to "the singing of terrorism related songs at the West Belfast Festival".

It has had 15 complaints over the past six years (including this year).

However it added that the organisers of the West Belfast Festival had never contravened charity law with regards to the singing over six years.

In 2023 the News Letter reported that the Arts Council and Belfast City Council awarded £116,599 and £244,000 respectively to the festival, but that Tourism NI declined to say how much it had given the charity.

Asked to comment on the terrorism related singing this year, Belfast City Council said yesterday that it funded the festival via the council’s Cultural Multi-Annual Grants scheme for four years (2020-2024).

“While council supports the festival on this basis, our funding does not support commercial events, such as the event by Shebeen," it added.