Police rubbish Kneecap 'merch ban' claim for Belfast band's sold-out SSE Arena Saturday night gig: rappers to hold afternoon pop-up city centre stall selling T-shirts and balaclavas

The band is due to play to 9,200 people at the city’s SSE Arena on Saturday night, but claimed they'd been “banned” from selling balaclavas and one of their T-shirts by “the RUC”.

Kneecap frequently call the PSNI by the old name for Northern Ireland’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which hasn’t existed for more than 20 years.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the group stated: “A little update ahead of our SSE Arena show on Saturday in Belfast.

"The RUC have “banned” us from selling some of our merch at the venue so we will have a pop-up merch spot at the Telegraph Building that day.”

At issue was a T-shirt bearing a cartoon of a burning police land rover, the act indicated.

The T-shirt also contains a slogan in Irish translating as “the RUC aren’t welcome”. The band unveiled a mural with the same cartoon and slogan on a Falls Road wall in 2022.

However, the PSNI states they didn’t take any issue with T-shirts on sale at Kneecap’s gig, and had not tried to restrict which ones are available.

"The concert is taking place at a private venue, and there has been no policing involvement,” said a spokeswoman, while directing the News Letter to the arena itself for comment on merchandise sales.

Meanwhile Belfast City Council confirmed that no restrictions on merchandise were imposed as part of licensing arrangements for the concert.

“We can confirm that there were no licensing conditions from Belfast City Council,” said a spokeswoman, “and the pop-up stall is to be located inside the Telegraph Building, so does not fall under street trading licensing.”

The SEE Arena was contacted, but has yet to reply.

Kneecap have been known to broaden their use of the term “RUC” out to include other authority figures they dislike – for example, labelling the Irish police force “RUC scum” when the Gardai were accused of heavy-handed tactics in tackling Dublin housing protestors a few years ago.

Northern Ireland’s old police force ceased to exist in 2001, when it was replaced by the PSNI as part of range of reforms meant to move the province away from the dark days of the Troubles.

Most of Kneecap are too young to have any real experience of the RUC; 30-year-old rapper Moglai Bap was a small child when it was got rid of, while fellow rapper Mo Chara, 26, would have been a toddler.

The only member of the group who could have proper memories of the old force is DJ Provai, who wears the band’s image-defining tricolour balaclava. The 36-year-old former secondary school teacher would have been in his early adolescence when the RUC was replaced with the PSNI.

Styling themselves as rebels bucking the system, Kneecap’s sold-out Christmas Saturday arena show caps an extremely successful year for the act, as 2024 included the release of a movie about and starring the band that was this week shortlisted for two Oscars.

The group refuse to speak to the News Letter - their manager, a former Irish diplomat turned football executive, stating: “Nobody from Kneecap will be providing comment to your ‘paper’, ever.”