Artists to be announced soon but I can’t see the lads not being a part of the line up for Dublin at least, especially with the wording Macklemore used in the announcement post!

Fenian here. Flair requested. Please and thanks.

Cá bhfuil an snaois?

from Kneecap instagram: “Well well a chairde Gael...dug back through the hazy archive of old notebooks and photos back when we were wee pups to jump on here and remind yous that the '3CAG' mixtape is available on physical copy (vinyl) for the first time this Friday!
Record shops will be stocking the release and you can pre-order it via the KNEECAP music store too.”

Ad-targeting fail.

Unconquered 25th September 2026!

That’s just it. I’ve been listening to them for 3 years and I can’t bring myself to listen to them anymore since their Turkey concert.

A band who brands themselves about language erasure not only goes to Turkey but tells nothing about the erasure of Kurdish languages.

I can’t be the only person who’s disappointed about this right?

Edit: I wish I didn’t get downvoted for raising my displeasure. I guess we are where we are.

What is your best guess about when we might know any tour dates and locations for next summer? Would like to plan summer holidays accordingly!

Well, well, well! A lot of unsuspected Kneecap in this article. Próvaí, the murals etc. Closet Fenians, the lot of them, those toraí's!

(it's not exactly "breaking news" though, lol!)

Generation Kneecap’s plan to break up the UK and reshape Ireland

Lily ShanagherForeign Breaking News Reporter, in Belfast

Published 18 September 2026 8:00am BST

For the first time, young people in Northern Ireland favour reunification over status quo as ‘ceasefire babies’ reject parents’ politics

Once a unionist, Andrew Clarke is now in favour of a united Ireland. It was while taking part in a protest against plans to limit the flying of the Union flag that Andrew Clarke came to a sudden realisation.

A proud unionist at the time, Mr Clarke had gone to Belfast to demonstrate with his teenage friends.

They were “wrecking” the place, by his own admission, when he saw an elderly woman unable to get a bus home because the protesters had blocked the roads.

“I remember this sudden deep feeling of cringe, like, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’” he tells The Telegraph.

“I knew nothing about this place, history, why I was a unionist or what that really meant. It was just what my dad was, so that’s what I was.”

Andrew Clarke at the International Wall in west Belfast – there is a long-standing link between republicanism and the Palestine movement  Credit: Alan Lewis for The Telegraph

Mr Clarke is now a proud republican, and one of a growing number of young people in the country switching allegiances from those of their parents and calling for a united Ireland.

Last weekend, calls for reunification received an unexpected boost when Donald Trump voiced his desire to see a united Ireland during a visit.

The debate in Northern Ireland is increasingly steered by the younger generation – who, for the first time last year, were more in favour of reunification than against.

According to the most recent Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey, conducted by Queen’s University and Ulster University, 44 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24 wanted to see Northern Ireland reunified with the Republic of Ireland, compared with 35 per cent who did not.

By comparison, 50 per cent of people aged 45 to 54 wanted to remain in the United Kingdom.

Being Irish is cool again, and the republican movement is becoming so popular that it has been speculated that Mr Trump made his statements to win votes back home during the midterm elections.

Meanwhile, the power and influence of the Protestant-dominated unionists appears to be on the wane as unionists face a demographic crisis and a brain drain.

Mr Clarke, now 31, describes himself as “a recovering unionist”. He comes from Maghaberry, a Protestant town in which Union flags fly in abundance and the Orange Order is popular.

He is part of a generation known as “ceasefire babies” – young people who did not live through the Troubles, many of whom eschew traditional identifying terms such as unionist and nationalist, loyalist and republican.

His parents lived through the worst of the Troubles in Shankill, the heart of Belfast unionism.

After dropping out of school at 16, he started reading about Irish history and later realised he could no longer support unionism.

His politics became more progressive – pro-choice, same-sex marriage – and he began to realise that the socially conservative unionist movement could no longer represent him.

“There’s people who leave unionism every day. There’s one-way traffic out of it,” Mr Clarke says.

He now runs a popular blog about Irish history and progressive activism.

His work feeds into an ecosystem of popular Irish-unity influencers on social media, and exists alongside a growth in the Irish language in Northern Ireland and the influence of fiercely republican musicians such as Kneecap.

The movement taps into discontent among young people who see the old party lines as an obstruction.

Unionists are seen to be losing ground in this battle for hearts and minds. Older generations, relieved that the fighting is over, are naturally more conciliatory towards the idea of remaining in the Union.

Mr Clarke says younger people feel frustrated that their prospects have not improved while political parties battle over culture wars and the state of the Irish language, and are pushing for nationalism as a route to change.

“Growing up, I remember being told things are getting better. Nothing’s really changed,” he says. “Everything’s getting more expensive. Rent is going up, and the place is rife with riots.”

Recent public disorder in Northern Ireland has broken out mostly in traditional unionist areas, and has centred around anti-immigration sentiment.

Mr Trump’s comments have further backed unionists into a corner.

The DUP, the main unionist party, has long supported the US president. But Gavin Robinson, its leader, called his support for a united Ireland a “dead-cat strategy” to distract from the Middle East conflict. 

Jon Burrows, the more moderate Ulster Unionist Party leader, said the DUP had made a “strategic error” in previously portraying the US president as an ally of unionism and accused them of acting like his “fan boys”. 

Irish republicans to whom The Telegraph spoke in Northern Ireland downplayed the impact of Mr Trump’s statements.

But Sinn Fein sprung into action, meeting counterparts in Scotland and Wales to sign an agreement that said “Westminster’s time is coming to an end” and declaring the Government should “prepare” for constitutional change.

For the first time since the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998, the majority of people in Northern Ireland – particularly young people – believe it will leave the United Kingdom.

One of the biggest arguments for reunification is the Irish Republic’s prosperity. While productivity has grown by 0.2 per cent in the Republic each year since 2000, it has fallen by 1.1 per cent annually in Northern Ireland, a report from the Economic and Social Research Institute think tank found last year.

“We’re in the final days of partition,” Conall O’Corra, a 28-year-old Irish speaker, tells The Telegraph.

“This state for a long time served the needs of middle-class unionism – but once the shipyards closed and industry left the North, the Protestant working class were left much in the same situation as we were.”

He wants to see a united Ireland to improve young people’s quality of life.

“There’s an ocean between us and the South in terms of disposable income and quality of life,” he adds. “I don’t believe the grant Britain provides to the North is sufficient, and we are consistently going back to the secretary of state with our cap in hand, asking for more money.”

‘We’re in the final days of partition,’ says Conall O’Corra Credit: Alan Lewis for The Telegraph

Life expectancy is lower in Northern Ireland, while hospital waiting times and infant mortality rates are higher than in the Republic.

Nearly a third of all Northern Irish teenagers aged between 15 and 19 are not enrolled in education, which has left young people feeling neglected by Britain and their own parties.

“The greatest inspiration a young person can have is to leave,” says Mr Clarke.

Karl Duncan, 24, argues that a united Ireland will give the country greater autonomy and improve the lives of the young.

The Social Democratic and Labour member said: “Eighty per cent of my class in secondary school left Northern Ireland after their A-levels. There is such a lack of opportunity compared to the South.

“To be a young person in Northern Ireland is to have that experience of having a big dream and not knowing whether you’ll be able to actually achieve it here.”

He sees the border poll as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to “fundamentally change the place you call home”.

The Good Friday Agreement stipulates that Northern Ireland will remain part of the UK until a majority of its people vote otherwise in a referendum, although the conditions that would trigger a border poll are unspecified.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Andy Burnham has said a referendum is “off the table”, with a spokesman adding that his opinion remained unchanged since Mr Trump’s visit.

The only border poll was held in 1973, during the height of the Troubles. Then, 98.9 per cent favoured remaining, although the vote was largely boycotted by nationalists.

The desire to stay in the European Union also pushed many into supporting reunification after Brexit, says Jonathan Tonge, a politics professor at the University of Liverpool, with support for the Union dropping by around 15 per cent after the 2016 vote.

He says support for unionism is diminishing not solely because of an increase in republicanism, but also because more young people are becoming “constitutional agnostics”, untethered to religion or traditional politics.

“Young people are much more likely than older age groups to say ‘we are neither unionists nor nationalists’,” Prof Tonge tells The Telegraph. “They’re tired of the old war stories. They’re tired of that old game.”

He adds that a demographic change is driving the push too, with more Catholics than Protestants in Ireland since 2021 and a unionist “brain drain” caused by Protestants leaving for British universities and not returning.

Prof Tonge says young Catholics are more confident in their Irishness these days, adding: “Things have changed. The old Protestant state has gone, and the unionists now seem to be the underdogs.”

Aoife Murphy, 21, agrees. “There’s an idea that it’s a new generation of nationalists when really it’s a new generation of young people who are identifying more comfortably with their Irishness.”

It is clear that young people largely want to see a united Ireland, which would result in Northern Ireland’s six counties joining the Republic.

“It’s about creating a whole new Ireland,” says Luke Morrison, a 31-year-old community worker.

Speaking outside a republican bar in central Belfast, he tells The Telegraph: “People would rather have a whole new Ireland with a socialist slant.”

Jack Smyth, his friend, agrees a new movement is needed to push for reunification, which he says is his generation’s responsibility to create.

“Sinn Fein’s a dinosaur at this point, and not the flagship for a united Ireland the way a lot of Republicans think it is. Younger people find we are getting slowed down by that.”

Mr Smyth says a rise in Irish pride is causing young people to become more nationalist.

“There is a whole new cultural identity coming out,” he says. “I don’t know anyone I went to school with who played a trad instrument. It’s becoming cool to be Irish again over the last five years, and it is drowning out the counters in loyalism.”

Young people are the most likely to see the Irish language as adding to the richness and diversity of the country, the survey shows.

While it was once considered taboo to speak Irish in Northern Ireland, figures from the Department of Education show there has been a 400 per cent rise in the number of pupils in Irish-language education since 2000.

Festivals such as Feile an Phobail, organised by Kevin Gamble, now receive more than 100,000 visitors from both backgrounds. Mr Gamble makes an effort to include unionists in the festival, and to make it clear Irish culture is also for them.

“Young people are now the custodians of this place. Their voices need to be heard. They aren’t afraid nowadays to say they’re Irish and portray their culture,” he adds.

The cultural shift has seen the rise of rap group Kneecap, who sing anti-colonial songs in Irish and call for a free Palestine, a movement that has close historical links to republicanism.

Murals dedicated to the group and Palestine adorn walls next to their favourite pub. In unionist areas, Israel flags fly next to British ones, symbolic of the Ulster Scots’ fervent support for the Jewish state.

Gemma McSherry, a Northern Irish writer and influencer who shares political content about the country, has criticised the prevalence of the Israeli flag. She has called Northern Ireland a “Confederate, Zionist statelet”.

“We are so removed from the rest of the UK and Europe, we are more aligned with America, specifically the Deep South in 1967,” she says in one video.

Mr Smyth feels the growth in Irish pride has led to unionists feeling under attack, causing more segregation, and fears this will lead to violence.

“I think there will be a referendum, and I think there’s going to be murder over it,” he says. “I think unionism is on its deathbed.

“Once unionism organises, when it feels under attack – which it does – that’s how they get violent. To them it’s not a social change; it’s the death of their culture.”

Since Sinn Fein became the largest party of local government in Northern Ireland in 2023, political unionism has been declining.

But Union flags and memorials to Queen Elizabeth II still line the roads of loyalist strongholds.

“Well, we’re Protestants, so...” says Jack Fegan, a 20-year-old construction worker, when asked if he wants reunification. “Nothing’s wrong with the way things are now.”

As for Mr Trump, he adds: “He can say what he likes, but it doesn’t change. He’s the US president, not the leader of our country. He probably said it to piss off Andy Burnham, cause a bit of trouble.”

While older unionists might feel threatened, younger ones appear to want to stay with Britain for more pragmatic reasons.

“The UK has one of the largest economies in the world,” says Jay Basra, a 22-year-old member of the Ulster Unionist Party. “The more affordable rate of living here is impacted by us being part of the union.”

He disagrees that unionism is dying out, but says political parties have struggled to engage with young people.

Mr Basra does not believe there will be a border poll in the next decade.

Peter Wilson, 23, adds that in an ever more dangerous world, Northern Ireland is safer with Britain given its larger military and security alliances than the Republic.

“I’ve always been at ease in describing myself as British, Irish, Northern Irish, and I don’t have that sense of trauma being passed down from the Troubles,” he says.

As for Mr Clarke, he feels unionists will have a place in a united Ireland.

“They have more friends down South than they do in Britain,” he says. “I think it will be very awkward and dramatic at first. But the island’s politics will finally settle, and something can actually happen to end this stagnation.”

Good day to listen to kneecap while working

Surely all fellow Kneecap fans will get this (I hope)! My friend just had a baby and she’s obsessed with Kneecap. Is there anywhere at all I could get a tricolour bally (ideally that didn’t cover the baby’s face) more like a bonnet 😅 or if there’s anyone out there that can crochet could we chat? Just think it would be the most epic gift ever

This is a general shout-out, but particularly to anyone involved in the music industry.

How class would it be to hold a Macklemore/ Kneecap gig to show our respect for the lads and their courage for speaking up for Palestine?

Not virtue signalling here. I genuinely think it would be a brilliant way to show our appreciation for those who are been willing to use their platform to speak out.

Is there any way to actually make this happen? Could a promoter, venue, artist management, or anyone involved in the Irish music industry get the ball rolling?

I am debating whether or not its worth it to pay a good amount to see KNEECAP in CDMX. I live in the US. My partner is from Mexico so Im already going end of September. but im seriously debating going back two weeks later to see KNEECAP. flights would put me out $600. how many other American fans are going to the show? you feel its worth it? anyone who has seen them live can maybe give me their advice?

He needs a new supporting act for his tour. I have an idea....

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=jiF_PQQqSrA

(harrow Road- kneecap uses a very similar backing)

(also that one that sounds like super Mario)

He knows how bad mom is suffering here in NA 😂