Tomorrow in the Old Bailey, the rap trio Kneecap will be charged with breaking the law. To be precise, LIAM ÓG Ó hAnnaidh, aka Mo Chara, will be tried for shouting at a concert “The only good Tory is a dead Tory” and “Kill your local MP”.
Kneecap are a serious musical group, while at the same time providing a show where they cavort like firecrackers all over the stage. Anyone who takes the statements of Mo Chara seriously need to examine not their kneecap but their head. Anyone who’s ever seen an old Western movie will recognise the echo of John Wayne or some such opining “The only good Injun is a dead Injun”; and anyone who has read a bog-standard political guidance will recognise “Consult your local MP” in the second manic yell of Mo Chara.
Even if I didn’t think they’ve done the Irish language a huge service by showing it doesn’t have to be a matter of learning by heart the eleven irregular Irish verbs. I can’t make out a lot of what they say when they perform on Youtube, but it’s obvious that they and their audience are having a whale of a time.
I remember back in the 1960s and 1970s reading the poetry of Adrian Mitchell, an Oxford university graduate with much of the Kneecap respect for respectability. ‘Celia, Celia’ is one of his many poems I love:
Celia, Celia
When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on
Mitchell died in 2008, which is a pity. He would have immediately spotted soul brothers in Kneecap. You don’t have to be respectable and polite if you’re an artist. You just have to have talent. Mitchell had it, Mo Chara has it, Kneecap have it. So give us a break tomorrow, Your Honour.
There’s a woman currently serving a 3 year jail sentence for comments she made on Facebook. Things are looking bad for Mo Chara.
I agree. Her sentence was far too severe. I put her and Mo in the same boat, their blood was up and they spouted off.