KNEECAP: "People from my area don't get this opportunity. I've been reminding myself this constantly"

Celebrity fans, big-name collaborators, a multi-award-winning film and international media attention have, thankfully, done nothing to soften KNEECAP’s revolutionary edge over the past year.

In fact, the Belfast trio recently wrapped up their landmark 2024 with one of their most satisfying takedowns of the British establishment to date – graduating from the DUP-enraging chants, murals and posters of their early career, to a highly publicised legal victory over the UK government.

Earlier this year, Kemi Badenoch – the Tory business secretary at the time, and now Leader of the Opposition – made headlines after blocking a £14,250 grant awarded to KNEECAP under the UK’s Music Exports Growth Scheme. The government had no intention, according to a spokesperson, of funding “people that opposed the United Kingdom itself”.

In recent weeks, at a hearing at Belfast High Court, that decision was ruled both “unlawful” and “procedurally unfair”, and KNEECAP were awarded every penny of their grant – which they subsequently split between two youth groups on either side of the community divide in Belfast, in both Ballymurphy and the Shankill Road.

Talking now to KNEECAP’s Mo Chara – who proves incredibly insightful for a man who only went to bed at 11.30am this morning – he refers to the victory as “easy money”, but notes that, above all else, the group pursued the case “on principle.”

 

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“That funding was there for bands touring America,” Mo Chara explains. “And £14,000 is very helpful, but it’s not as groundbreaking as you would think – because touring America is super expensive. So, it was never about the money. As DJ Próvaí said, it could’ve been 50 pence.”

Punishing the group for opposing the political status quo is especially ridiculous, Mo Chara reckons, given that “the biggest political party up North is Sinn Féin.”

“What we’re saying in our tunes, or what we’re saying against Kemi Badenoch, is actually the status quo here,” Mo Chara resumes. “A united Ireland isn’t some underground political belief that people have.”

“This stuff happens all the time up here,” he says of Badenoch’s actions. “There’s massive injustices happening, constantly – it just flies under the radar. People in the North are subjugated to tyranny, basically. And the British government are getting away with murder. It’s only because we were lucky enough to have a bit of backing, with the platform we have, that we could go to a lawyer. Most people don’t have that privilege up here.”

For Mo Chara, being able to give half of the funds awarded in the court case to the Glór na Móna youth organisation in Ballymurphy was special for a personal reason.

“I was basically raised by that youth club, so I thought it was a nice full circle moment to give a few quid back,” he tells me. “I used to go there everyday after school. When I was 15, I started volunteering with the primary school kids there, and when I was 16 I got a part-time job there. Then when I was 18, I was working in that youth club.

“Ballymurphy is where I went to school,” he adds. “And it was lovely to see that kids in this area – who didn’t necessarily have the same privileges that other kids would have had – were able to be bilingual. And lunatics! Young kids who were nuts, were also bilingual – and that was normal.”

That community, and similar communities across the North and beyond, were given a voice like never before this year, as KNEECAP – also made up of Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí – went global. Rich Peppiatt’s award-winning feature film Kneecap – inspired by, written with, and starring the group – proved an instant hit with cinema-goers across multiple continents, following its premiere at Sundance Film Festival. Now tipped to secure a Best International Feature Film nomination at the Oscars, the movie is likely to garner even more attention over the months ahead – especially now that it’s been added to both Prime Video here, and Netflix in the US.

This year also saw KNEECAP unveil their long-awaited debut album, the Toddla T-produced Fine Art – which scored spots on numerous best-of-the-year lists, clocked up millions of streams, and even earned the praise of Elton John.

Between all that, they've also managed to fit in sold-out headline shows around the world, high-profile festival appearances, and a US TV debut on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

“People from my area don’t get this opportunity,” Mo Chara reflects. “I’ve been reminding myself this constantly. Obviously you can be busy touring, and things can be really hard and stressful – but I think it’s very important to take a second, and remind yourself how lucky we are to be able to do what we love. Because people struggle. People work on fucking building sites for 12 hours a day.”

When they first started writing the film with Rich Peppiatt, their main goal was to create something “colloquial, and authentically Belfast,” Mo Chara says.

“We were like, ‘Worst case scenario, our friends will like it,’” he recalls. “‘If there’s a wee crew in Belfast that’ll enjoy it, then we’ll know we’ve done well.’”

But what they had initially thought of as “a story about the Irish language,” he says, soon became an “international story of native languages being oppressed by colonialism.”

“We’ve had loads of messages from people of Native American backgrounds, and Aboriginal Australians,” he resumes. “They’re like, ‘I never had the opportunity to learn my language – the language my grandparents spoke.’ And so, out of the film, they’ve gone back and started learning more about their own culture.”

Has it surprised him to see how enthusiastically young English people have embraced KNEECAP – alongside other aspects of Irish culture, like Guinness-drinking…

“The whole of London’s fucking splitting the ‘G’!” Mo Chara laughs. “But yeah – I feel like Irish republicanism had been such a taboo subject, especially in England. But it’s important that we talk about it.

“The British government serves nobody,” he continues. “It doesn’t serve the British people, and it doesn’t serve the Irish people. People in England are maybe a wee bit more ready to talk about this now. And that’s important, if we’re ever going to have a border poll.”

It’s a conversation he feels people all over Ireland should be engaging with.

“The people in the South should be fucking screaming for a united Ireland,” he states. “If there was a border poll, we could take the best of both societies, and create a perfect wee fucking island, where you’ve free healthcare – and the bins are paid for!

“But Fianna Fáil, again?!” he adds. “Jesus fucking Christ. It’s time for an alternative, guys. It’s not that fucking taboo. The Tory government and the Labour government have done nothing for the North, and Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have done nothing for the South. Let’s try something different.”

For years now, KNEECAP have also been outspoken in their support of Palestine, organising solidarity events and fundraisers with the likes of Irish Artists For Palestine and ACLAÍ Palestine. More recently, they took part in Paul Weller's all-star Gig For Gaza over at the O2 Academy Brixton in London. For Mo Chara, it's been encouraging to see that English people are “finally coming to a place where they can speak out loud about the fact that the government is doing nothing.”

“Or actually, the opposite of nothing,” he corrects himself. “The government is funding a genocide.”

Kneecap premiere at The Lighthouse Cinema. Copyright Miguel Ruiz.

“The Zionists are religious fanatics,” he says. “Lets not muddy the waters here – they’re religious fanatics who have gotten away with literal murder, for a long, long time. And they’re clearly not listening to international fucking law.

“Ian Lynch from Lankum said something that really fucking spoke to me,” he adds. “Something along the lines of, ‘We don’t want to be 80 years of age, and have our grandkids ask: Why the fuck did nobody do anything about this back then?'"

The way Mo Chara sees it, “none of us can be perfect – but we can all do our bit, whatever our bit is.”

“I don’t think it’s surprising at all that Irish artists have spearheaded this,” he says of Palestine solidarity in Ireland. “Irish artists, and Irish people in general, have usually been on the right side of history. Obviously you get Irish-Americans who become very right-wing and conservative – but in general, the Irish have been very understanding of people’s plight.

“In a lot of countries around the world, they’re very patriotic about where they’re from – but it can become quite conservative,” he continues. “But to be patriotic in Ireland is to be understanding of other people’s struggles. The reason I’m proud to be Irish is because of how we have treated oppressed people around the world, for years. Because it wasn’t that long ago that we were on the other side of it.”

Over the past few months, plenty of famous faces, from Ed Sheeran to Noel Gallager, have been spotted at KNEECAP gigs – but Mo Chara isn’t getting too caught up in celebrity idolisation.

“People have been sound, and it’s good craic,” he acknowledges. “It’s exciting, for somebody from West Belfast, to be meeting these people. But it worries me that people with notoriety or celebrity are not making a point to talk about Gaza. These people have enough money, and are so well established that, if they make a statement, they’re not going to lose their record deal, or lose money.

“This is bigger than your fucking music, mate,” he adds. “There’s a fucking genocide happening. It’s important that people with any kind of platform speak about it. But people aren’t, and that’s fucking terrifying.”

There are, of course, plenty of acts that have inspired KNEECAP, through both their output and their advocacy, this year. When it comes to the music that defined Mo Chara’s 2024, he has one word: “Fontaines.”

“‘Starburster’ is one of the best tunes I’ve ever heard,” he says of the Irish band’s Romance track. “That is incredible. And then I see Grian doing an interview, and he’s talking about us. And then Elton John on his fucking podcast… What the fuck has happened this year?!”

Kneecap at Vicar Street. Copyright Jason Doherty.

The pace of KNEECAP’s 2024, Mo Chara admits, hasn’t left much time for reflection. But out of the countless ‘pinch-me’ moments, Glastonbury was a stand-out, he says.

“Even if you don’t have any kind of background in music or whatever, Glastonbury is just so iconic,” he reflects. “Even the name. So to be on the billing alone was crazy, but to be playing at 11.30 in the morning, and having a full crowd – and bear in mind that everything’s a two-hour walk away – that was just mind-blowing.

“The Irish have always had great music,” he adds. “It just hasn’t always been given the space it deserves. So I felt like we were standing on the shoulders of giants there.”

2025 will likely see the KNEECAP phenomenon only continue to grow – with a headline tour of Australia, their biggest live show to date in Dublin’s Fairview Park, and a performance at Coachella already confirmed.

“People ask us all the time, ‘What’s next?’” Mo Chara reflects. “But I don’t know, to be honest. I want to take as much free time as I can next year. I want to go and travel around the place.”

What about a return to his roots – as a former, and still fully-qualified, beekeeper? (Yes, really.)

“I’m going to go back to my beekeeping career as soon as my hair goes grey,” he decides. “When that happens, I’m getting a beehive – but until then, I’m on the move…”

Fine Art is out now, and the Kneecap film is available to watch on Prime Video. KNEECAP play Fairview Park, Dublin (June 19, 2025). See their full list of upcoming dates at kneecap.ie