A contemporary of mine who is now dead was the archetypal old fashioned Gaeilgeoir. He ran Irish language classes, loved nothing more than a bit of chaste céilí dancing for entertainment and was fervently Catholic. He would often wear a green suit and was sometimes called Paddy Irishman, though not when he was around. He was very much of the view that every word of Irish spoken was a bullet fired for Irish freedom, an opinion which earned him a couple of serious beatings from the cops (that and some other stuff they thought he’d done). It’s also one shared by Michael Fassbender’s father character. Especially in the six counties people like him kept some sort of Irish language movement alive, even if it was a fairly niche interest.

One thing this movement managed to successfully do was to set up a network of Irish language primary and secondary schools. In fact, another acquaintance of mine from long ago who was caught with some automatic weapons in the back of his car, went on to be the head teacher of one. Kneecap’s new film is the extremely unexpected and commercially successful result of all those decades of hard slog. It produced a bunch of young people fluent in the language determined to pull its musical culture into the 21st century even if they were as familiar with this sort of thing as they were with Stormzy.  

It’s a very richly layered piece of work and the three group members more than hold their own with the professional actors. At its simplest it’s about how three young men set up a group and go on to international success, albeit with more sex, swearing, drugs and violence than is normal in those vehicles. The story it tells of their rakes’ progress is broadly accurate. The predictable indignation created by their unrepentant Republicanism was great publicity. Not every group gets headlines for baring their arses in a venue which had been attended by a couple of members of the English royal family the night before. Their run ins with the lumpen dissident groups which “tax” drug dealers has the ring of truth even if the group doesn’t draw the obvious conclusion that the drug epidemic in Ireland is a product of political degeneration and demoralisation. 

Alongside the laugh out loud comedy (“we sold out quicker than Michael Collins”) the script doesn’t shy away from the darker side of what has happened in their lives, including the impact of depression and inadequate mental health care. This is mainly shown by the housebound Dolores played by Simone Kirby, but Michael Fassbender’s character Arló Ó Cairealláin, the IRA volunteer continuing the “operation” long after his war is lost is a nod to those Republican militants whose fight ended a quarter century ago and struggle to understand why their party is now running the state they set out to destroy.  

It’s a supremely political film. The group use an empty flat to receive their  postal deliveries of drugs ordered on the dark web. Unlike Keir Starmer, they don’t take down a portrait of Thatcher. They use it as a dartboard while waiting on the postman. Not only do they see their project of modernising Irish musical culture as metaphorical bullets for Irish freedom, they understand it as part of a global necessity of keeping languages alive globally.  

For all their self-presentation as drug addled corner boys, Kneecap have in under a year released an excellent album, played several major festivals in which they’ve always been vocal about their support for the people of Palestine and have made a funny, thought provoking, sophisticated film. Paddy Irishman’s work has borne fruit, though probably not in a way he’d entirely approve of.  

Source >> Liam Redux