Watch: Lankum perform 'The Rocks of Palestine' live at Glastonbury

Irish folk group Lankum, sang ‘The Rocks of Palestine’ at Glastonbury on Saturday afternoon.

The song was a reworking of the traditional folk song ‘The Rocks of Bawn’, with lyrics acknowledging the suffering in Gaza.

The group performed the reworked rendition at the RTÉ Choice Awards earlier this year, where they also spoke out on the Israel-Palestine conflict in their acceptance speech for the Album of The Year award.

The group upon winning the €10,000 prize at the Vicar Street Ceremony in March said: "To be honest, it's really hard to see how we can celebrate it with an actual live genocide going on".

Speaking on behalf of the band, Lankum's Ian Lynch said on what collective actions people can take: "There's occupations, direct action, boycotts - go into the supermarket, find every Israeli product you can find, fuck it in the bin.

"It's a good start anyway because I think we all need to do exactly what we can because in the years to come, your grandkids are gonna be sitting on your lap and they're gonna go 'Nana, Granda, what did you do during the Palestine genocide?'."

A video originally aired by the BBC and posted by Lankum on social media shows the crowd cheering during the performance of ‘The Rocks of Palestine’ and waving Irish and Palestinian flags.

 

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The band were among many other Irish acts performing at the festival including Kojaque, Two Door Cinema Club, NewDad, KNEECAP, Fontaines D.C., and The Mary Wallopers.

Fontaines D.C. performed a number of songs from their upcoming fourth album Romance including ‘Starburster’, as well as classics like ‘Jackie Down The Line’, ‘Sha Sha Sha’ and ‘Boys In The Better Land’.

 

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Kojaque played the Lonely Hearts Club on Friday, and could be seen crowd surfing while performing ‘Towns Dead’ off the 2021 album.

 

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Newdad made their Glastonbury debut on Sunday and played some of their well known songs like ‘Angel’ and ‘Sickly Sweet’ as well as their recent cover of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven.'

 

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KNEECAP's Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí drew massive crowds as they took to the Woodsies stage on Saturday. They then finished with a late-night show at the Shangri-La area, which they described as “one of the best gigs of our lives.”

During their sets, the Belfast group highlighted their pro-Palestine stance, with a projected message saying that 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli strikes that have been “enabled by the British government”, as well as chants of "Free, free Palestine."

 

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The boys were also present for the screening of their critically acclaimed film Kneecap at the festival’s Pilton Palais Cinema.