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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1152 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 18, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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A few weeks ago I spoke about Ireland's new President, the outspoken leftist Catherine Connolly. So far, her presidency is going about as expected:

President Connolly hosted a visit from Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg to Áras an Uachtaráin* today, while also greeting runners taking part in a Gaza solidarity fundraiser organised by a member of Kneecap** in the Phoenix Park.

I didn't think it was possible to be so annoyed by a single sentence.

*The President's residence in Dublin's Phoenix Park.

**A hip-hop band from Northern Ireland who were recently facing charges in the UK of incitement to violence and offering support to proscribed organisations, owing to their conduct at various gigs in which they urged attendees to "murder [their] local MP", chanting "Up Hamas" and leading attendees in chants of "Ooh! Ah! Hezbollah!"

Something I've wanted to ask you for a while is how much of the Irish obsession with Israel you think can be explained by Jew hatred (probably at least some) vs widespread Irish enthusiasm for horrific gratuitous violence as some sort of spectator sport. The fact that a band like Kneecap can name themselves after a torture procedure and have backing from the country's elites is pretty remarkable to me as someone not from the country - I can't imagine even the most gung-ho Americans would want to be publicly associated with a band called something like "Waterboarding".

The fact that a band like Kneecap can name themselves after a torture procedure and have backing from the country's elites is pretty remarkable to me as someone not from the country

I interpret their name as a straightforward imitation of the violence (real or bragged about) in hip hop culture generally, plus the obvious fact that the IRA used to kneecap people.

As to why they have backing from the country's elites, I'd say this article puts its well:

This is Kneecap: they steal valour from physical-force republicanism to give their bien-pensant ‘West Brit’ views the lick of radicalism. They pull on a balaclava to hide the truth that their every utterance is likely to get the Trinity grads at the Irish Times rattling their jewellery in vociferous agreement.

It’s the performative nature of Kneecap’s radicalism that endears them to so many bourgeois youths in Britain and Ireland. I would wager that a majority of the people leaping up and down at Kneecap gigs as they rap ‘Brits Out!’ and ‘Fuck Israel!’ are kids of privilege. Indeed, the Irish Times published a piece earlier this year titled: ‘A middle-class millennial at a Kneecap gig: am I just cosplaying at republicanism?’ Yes, you are. But you’re not alone. Disguising milquetoast guff in radical garb is all the rage. So where posh young Brits will don Novara Media’s 25-quid earrings that say ‘Literally A Communist’ before wanging on about how fucking dumb ‘the gammon’ are, Kneecap fans will pull on a t-shirt featuring a Mick in a balaclava before wringing their untoiled hands over how pitiably traumatised the Irish are. Everyone hides their class prejudice behind class politics these days.

They express quintessentially bourgeois views with a fake veneer of working class radicalism.

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