The three members of Irish rap band Kneecap are ‘ceasefire babies’: they grew up on the streets of Belfast around the time of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. So did I. But the similarities between me and the band end there.
On a November night in 2001, I was at the cinema with my brother. In Belfast, one of the best cinemas at the time was in Yorkgate. Unfortunately, it was situated at what is known as a ‘flashpoint’, where the Catholic New Lodge estate abutted the fiercely Protestant Tigers Bay. Riots were common. A thick steel fence was meant to keep cinemagoers safe, but it failed to stop the petrol bomb that was lobbed in our direction. A fireball erupted at our feet. I vividly remember the screams of those who were injured, the wailing of police sirens and, at one point, a huge explosion. A young lad held a pipe bomb too long and it detonated beside his head. He was 16. He died shortly after in hospital. He was buried on his 17th birthday. This was the reality of growing up in Northern Ireland, as the Troubles came to an end, but the city’s two communities, of Protestants and Catholics, remained at loggerheads.
Despite what some of Kneecap’s fans might think, there was nothing glamorous about life as a ‘ceasefire baby’. The band has been back in the news this week after footage emerged of one of Kneecap’s members saying: ‘The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.’ Cries of ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah,’ have also been heard at Kneecap gigs. And one of the band’s members has been photographed on social media reading The Statements of Hassan Nasrallah – a prominent Hezbollah leader who was killed by Israel last year.
The controversy has resulted in Kneecap’s gigs being cancelled at a number of venues. A concert at the Eden Project in Cornwall has been called off. So, too, have a number of performances in Germany. The band is doing its best to limit the fallout. In a statement on X, Kneecap said that ‘an extract of footage, deliberately taken out of all context, is now being exploited and weaponised, as if it were a call to action’. They also suggested that some of the backlash was a ‘smear campaign’.
Kneecap’s members, don’t forget, are all over the age of 28. It’s about time they grew up. I don’t remember finding it trivial being evacuated from school because there was a suspected car bomb outside (this happened more than once). Back then, I was concerned about telling taxi drivers my last name, in case they took unkindly to my obviously Catholic background. Hearing about family members who had been killed and seriously injured through the Troubles was a painful memory of growing up.
My generation, of course, didn’t live through the worst of the Troubles. But even though I wasn’t (thankfully) there to see it, I have heard enough to know that it was a time of misery. Does Kneecap realise as much? Their stunts – including wearing balaclavas and unveiling a mural of police vehicles ablaze – might play well with their fan base and generate some edgy headlines, but it belittles the sacrifices made by our public servants to keep our streets safe.
Kneecap had a unique opportunity, through their edgy subversion of Irish culture and popularising a once-dying Irish language amongst their fans, to connect with future generations. Unfortunately, they got caught up in their own hype. They, like me, only had a relatively mild taste of the extreme violence of the Troubles. But also, like me, they are beneficiaries of peace. That peace only came about through reasoned, hard debate between serious people. I suggest Kneecap’s members go back and speak to their parents about the Troubles for a dose of much-needed reality.
Link to original, published in The Spectator on 04 May 2025.
