Kneecap, 'ceasefire babies' and the resurgence of Gaeilge

A strange thing happened when I went to see Kneecap, the quasi-autobiographical film created by Belfast/Derry Irish language rappers Kneecap and now chosen as Ireland's Oscar entry for Best International Feature.

As the opening flashback scene began to play I realised that I had not only been present at the time, I had actually filmed it. It was the summer of 1994 and, somewhat unusually, a child was being christened at the mass rock in Colin Glen in West Belfast. The father of the child asked me to hold the camcorder and I happily obliged, filming as the priest led the prayers in Irish.

At this point the movie’s version of the scene diverges significantly from mine, as a low-flying British army helicopter plunges the christening into chaos. The story that follows is a veritable storm of invention, wit and cinematic exuberance, charting the newly-christened child’s journey from the Belfast of the peace process to adulthood in post-conflict West Belfast and the birth of punk/rap trio Kneecap.

The irony of 1994 being a descent into chaos is that the conventional historical narrative says the very opposite – it was the year of the ceasefires and a definitive moment in the inexorable progress towards peace, stability and reconciliation. That version of events is true but so, also, is the version we see in Kneecap and it is one that is well worth telling.

Kneecap is billed as a comedy, which it certainly is, but it also relates the story of the ceasefire generation, children who grew up in areas like West Belfast that had, since the early 1970s, been physically transformed into highly militarised zones, dominated from above by watchtowers and helicopters and on the ground below by British army foot patrols and heavily armoured vehicles. The mutual hostility between the local civilian nationalist population and the ‘security forces’ was relentless.

Then, after 25 years of the Troubles, all of this was supposed to suddenly end. What transpired, of course, is a lot more complicated and because the media tend to report traumatic events rather than their long-term consequences, the problematic legacy of the Troubles is less documented than the events of the Troubles themselves.

‘Ceasefire babies’  grew up in an environment that had been shaped by a conflict that was supposed to be over, yet most of the outward signs remained – the segregation of housing along religious lines, ‘peace walls’ dividing streets and paramilitary murals on gable walls. The disconnection of this generation with the events that had moulded their parents is brilliantly captured in Michael Magee’s award-winning novel Close to Home (2023).

The ceasefire generation in Magee’s novel struggle to find their place in the world they have inherited, seeming to have been oddly disqualified from becoming adults there. In one scene, the main character Sean and his friend Ryan, both aged 22, are squatting in a flat when they hear something at the door. As they strain their ears to assess the potential danger they conclude that there are ‘men’ outside.  Later on Sean wonders why the word ‘men’ doesn’t apply to him and Ryan.

The same disconnection between generations takes various forms in Kneecap –Naoise/Móglaí Bap lives with his agoraphobic mother, played by Simone Kirby, whose house is a time capsule of the 1990s. His father, played by Michael Fassbender, is an IRA man who is supposed to be dead but is actually alive and secretly living as a yoga instructor in the west of Ireland.  His ‘death’ ensures his ongoing mythic power and status but, in practical terms, this also means that Naoise has great difficulty in contacting him, let alone maintaining a paternal relationship.

These and so many other bizarre circumstances make the hallucinatory drug scenes in the movie seem almost normal. The fact that Gerry Adams has a cameo in one of these scenes will be difficult for many people to find funny, not least those affected by IRA violence. Yet, this is not a film about those who lived through the Troubles, it is a film about the generation that inherited them. It is seen through their eyes and this is what makes it so very different and compelling.

The other element that is so unusual is the movie’s use of the Irish language. Most of the dialogue is in Irish and Michael Fassbender speaks it very convincingly, so much so that he should seriously consider taking one of MU’s TEG exams (if you’re reading this Michael you can find all the details here). 

Yet, in some ways, the prominence of the Irish language should be no surprise. The last 30 years have seen a steady growth in gaelscoileanna throughout Ireland and, in the north, enrolments have increased from a few hundred pupils in 1994 to almost 7,500 today. All three members of Kneecap attended a gaelscoil and their use of Irish has brought the language into new spaces – Glastonbury, Electric Picnic, the Tribeca and Sundance film festivals, where the film won the Sundance Audience Award.

There is, of course, a political and historical context to the resurgence of the Irish language in the north. The Government of Ireland Act (1920) created two deeply estranged states, with the Irish language being the most prominent badge of identity espoused by the Irish Free State. With one eye south of the border, the new Unionist government in Northern Ireland asserted its difference by suppressing Irish.

As the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Education put it in 1928: “We found Irish teaching in being when we took over and so far from encouraging it, we have been reducing facilities, and as a result Irish is taught in only 149 schools as against 242 in 1922.” 

After the dissolution of Stormont in 1972, the policy of confinement continued under Westminster – state funding of gaelscoileanna was not ceded until 1984 (13 years after the first school opened) and there were no TV programmes in the language until 1991. ‘Policing Irishness’ is how one commentator has described state policy and it appears that it had the reverse effect. The more the Irish language was marginalised, the greater its subversive energy, and Kneecap are yet more proof of this. Yes, it can still be a boring school subject, as the film shows to parodic effect, but it can also be something very different.

Where the Irish language in the North is concerned, rather than sharing in a sense of disconnection, it has been, for many, a driver of social cohesion. The huge mobilisation of young people in the recent Dream Dearg/Acht na Gaeilge campaign is testament to this and, indeed, features in the movie. The film rightly draws on this well of optimism, while being true to the challenges of post-conflict West Belfast.

Perhaps the most powerful endorsement of that optimism is the news that a new gaelscoil will open its doors this September in unionist East Belfast. Unionist Irish language punk/rap trio to form in the next 15 years? Place your bets now.

Main photo: West Belfast Peace Wall, Cupar Way by David Dixon via Wikimedia Commons

This piece originally appeared on RTÉ Brainstorm