11 hours ago
The Kneecap crossover event
Photo by'Tiocfaidh ár lá' an old man says, greeting a friend. 'Up the ra' he adds in a chirpy cadence, as though the IRA rebel slogans are standard-fare casual greetings. He is from Longford, about 80 years old, and holding a placard that says 'No more borders in Ireland'. I wander over to the barricade and someone hands me a 'Love music, hate racism' sticker. It's hard to argue with, I suppose.
I am, of course, outside Westminster Magistrates' Court awaiting the arrival of Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, 27 – one third of the West Belfast bilingual hip-hop trio Kneecap. He performs under the moniker Mo Chara (or 'my friend' in English), and was charged by the Metropolitan Police in May with a terror offence for allegedly brandishing a Hezbollah flag at a gig in Kentish Town last year.
A policeman reckons there are 400 people here. There is a band, they're playing 'Zombie' by the Cranberries, it's only 9.40am. It's a polite affair too: in spite of the flares, the truculent organiser who will not let me speak to the Sinn Féin MPs present (John Finucane and Paul Maskey), the jostling throng that swamped Mo Chara and his bandmates when they arrived, and the woman with no shoes on, you might even describe it as urbane. 'No more bother for the IRA' ranks among the more gentle rebel slogans I have ever heard; at one point a woman's Socialist Worker Party placard ('Defend Kneecap, Drop the Charges, Freedom for Palestine') clatters into another's head – 'Don't worry, these things happen' she responds; Paul Weller is here, no longer as a punk but an elder statesman of British rock.
This is a cross-over event: by my count, Palestinian flags just about outnumber Irish ones. 'Saoirse don Phalaistín,' (Irish for Freedom for Palestine) one flag reads; a woman being interviewed by the BBC wears a Celtic green jersey with 'Palestine' written on it in Arabic; 'Free Palestine!' the crowd chants. 'Free Ireland!' a smaller chorus shouts in response (somewhat off-message, I wonder). At one point I overheard a man with a gentle southern British accent explain that his grandfather was on 'the army council' – that is, the board of the IRA (yeah sure, just like every Gen-Z Dubliner in search of edge!). Behind him, a quiet teenager lifts a tricolour balaclava from his face. I think he is here with his mum.
In the long history of the Ireland/Palestine omnicause mash-up, its purest distillation may just have happened outside Westminster Magistrates' Court during a summer heatwave.
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