Kneecap in Mexico: "People’s souls, the way they see themselves and the way they can express themselves, are rooted in their language"

“Mexicans and Irish people are the same,” Móglaí Bap said during his first visit to Mexico City.

“Big celebrations, a love of drink and large families,” he joked, as he tried on his first lucha libre mask of the day.

DJ Próvaí, also wearing a mask and preparing to launch himself off the top rope of a wrestling ring, added that both nations have terrible neighbours: expansionist invaders who took their land and dehumanised their people.

Mo Chara, who had visited Mexico the previous year, offered another way of describing the connection. Both countries, he observed, speak the same language: the language of resistance.

The conversation was part of an exclusive photo shoot and interview with Kneecap for Hot Press in Mexico City, which took place with the support of the Embassy of Ireland in Mexico, the Álvaro Obregón Borough Government and the Casa del Risco Museum.

The project, from photographer Alan Cortés and journalist Oscar Adame Galeano, explores the cultural and political links between Ireland and Mexico, and the vital role Indigenous languages play in protecting their cultures.

“Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam: a country without a language is a country without a soul,” Móglaí Bap said.

When asked what that meant for Mexico, where dozens of Indigenous languages are spoken, Mo Chara replied with a laugh: “Well, it’s a country with many souls.”

Kneecap in Mexico City. Photo: Alan Cortes

The comparison points to a shared history of linguistic and cultural displacement.

In Ireland, the revival of the Irish language is central to Kneecap’s identity; in Mexico, the survival of Indigenous languages remains a pressing challenge for many communities. The country recognises 68 linguistic groupings, encompassing 364 linguistic variants across 11 language families, many of which face pressures that threaten their continued transmission.

“We know there’s a lot going on in this country, crime and corruption take up most of the news columns and television coverage. Indigenous languages and cultures are at the bottom of the list,” DJ Próvaí said. “But people’s souls, the way they see themselves and the way they can express themselves, are rooted in their language."

The Casa del Risco Museum is located directly across from San Jacinto Plaza, where the memory of Mexico and Ireland was sealed in blood and spirit. The place commemorates the Irish soldiers who deserted the U.S. Army to fight for Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848.

Kneecap in Mexico City. Photo: Alan Cortes

In the centre of the park stands the bust of Captain John Riley next to a commemorative plaque with the names of the Irish soldiers who made up the Heroic Saint Patrick Battalion: "Martyrs who gave their lives for the cause of Mexico during the unjust North American invasion."

They changed sides because they realised they were doing the same thing that had been done to them at home: an imperialist, Protestant, and English-speaking force was entering a Catholic country in crisis.

The fact that the Irish stood for Mexico is “an incredible story, and to be able to have some connection to it makes you feel tremendous sense of pride,” Mo Chara said. “It's almost like you have some ownership of it yourself, when you hear that where you're from has done some good somewhere else in the world.”

DJ Provaí added: “It’s a powerful story about right and wrong and colonial power. These people went over at the same time there was a famine happening in Ireland, and they were fighting for the Americans, but then saw that we were on the wrong side here. We're the bad guys… so, let's go and fight with the Mexicans instead. It just shows the right side of history.”

“They had a choice, and they chose to stand by their morals, even though they were hanged for it. They became martyrs and there's a lot of that in Ireland, a lot of martyrdom,” added Móglaí Bap.

• Stay tuned for the full Kneecap in Mexico feature.