While Gaeltacht areas in Ireland continue to face serious challenges, the Irish language is also going through a positive period, in the sense that the confidence of Irish speakers is up, it is finding new creative expression, and gaining the attention of younger generations. Yet despite the appearance of high-quality films such as the Oscar-nominated An Cailín Ciúin (2022) or the famine epic Arracht (2019), the thing that Irish-language content still lacks is a gritty street vernacular able to capture the reality of contemporary urban culture.

Enter Kneecap, a riotous semi-fictional biopic of how the rap trio of the same name came into being in west Belfast. While on the surface the film is a helter-skelter comedy of baggy tracksuits, drugs and bottles of Buckfast, underneath this grimy exterior is a film of substance that attempts to negotiate the complex realities of northern Irish politics.

Among the many threads that run through the film is the tension between competing visions of the Irish language’s future, both practically, as a means of communication, and symbolically, as an expression of Irish nationalism. The former is most directly played out in the character of a teacher (J.J. Ó Dochartaigh) at an Irish-language school who, disillusioned with drilling his students with rote-learned phrases, happens to be called in to a police cell one night as an interpreter for an arrested low-level drug dealer Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh) who refuses to speak English. Impressed by the Irish lyrics he finds in a notebook snatched from the interrogation, Ó Dochartaigh realises the Gaeilgeoir hoodlum is on to something. When he joins Mo Chara’s friend Móglaí Bap (Naoise Ó Cairealláin) to form a rap trio he begins his journey from staid Gaelscoil phrase grinder to the future DJ Próvai.

Ar a mbealach to recognition, the trio have to surmount their own individual challenges, each symbolising wider forces at play within Northern Ireland’s eternally shifting political landscape. Despite hiding his identity as the balaclava clad DJ Próvai, Ó Dochartaigh’s involvement with the group gets him in trouble in his teaching job, and in his relationship with his more conventional Gaeilgeoir activist girlfriend Caitlín. Mo Chara’s kinky romance with a Protestant girl earns him the unwanted attentions of her sadistic police officer aunt who represents dark state forces while intergenerational struggles define Móglaí Bap’s relationship with his republican father Arlo (Michael Fassbender) who faked his death to evade the British authorities and is still stuck in the past

Accomplished acting and directing
On top of this, the group’s enthusiasm for uninhibited drug taking attracts the ire of the buffoonish Radical Republicans Against Drugs (RRAD), a dissident republican group whose own hypocrisy is exposed in the movie’s climax. By conventional film standards this is a lot to pack in; but in the context of what is ostensibly an irreverent comedy, the fact that it all manages to hold together at all is a serious accomplishment by director Rich Peppiatt.

The film’s editing is well paced and all three members of the group acquit themselves well as debut actors: Ó Dochartaigh’s character transformation is especially convincing while Fassbender as Arlo haunts the film like a resurrected Bobby Sands from Hunger – or rather as ‘Bobby Sandals’ as Móglaí Bap jokes in a beach yoga scene. Much has been made of Kneecap’s ability to stretch the tightrope of non-discriminatory irony allowing them to get away with tri-colour balaclavas and republican chants. The jokes generally hit their mark and, on balance, it’s the republican side that gets more of a pasting, particularly in the form of the comically inept RRAD thugs.

The strains do occasionally show: the group’s desire to promote the Irish language and, at the same time, present as authentic rappers with a sufficient dose of street-cred seems to warrant an oversupply of drug-fuelled scenes. Some of these are amusing – especially one featuring a floating avatar of Gerry Adams – but it seems like an over-compensation and the humour tends to wear thin after the fourth or fifth escapade.

These, along with the ecumenical sex scenes and gruesome beatings will have done plenty to spare the film the honour of becoming a Leaving Cert Irish set work. The usual uncritical chorus of praise from the Irish media may have overhyped the film’s originality, but in its own way, Kneecap may yet turn out to be the one of the most significant Irish-language films ever produced. 

Kneecap is currently screening nationwide. The band have also recently released their debut album, Fine Art. For upcoming Kneecap concerts, visit www.kneecap.ie.