AT A PACKED Electric Arena tent at the Electric Picnic festival, there was huge noise before Kneecap took to the stage.
The Irish language rap trio projected a message onto screen before their entry: “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people.”
This was followed by what Kneecap later described as its message to the Irish Government: “It is being enabled by the USA who use Shannon as a military outpost.”
There have been several protests at Shannon Airport this year calling for an end to the transport of weapons to Israel via Irish airports.
However, former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said last November that Shannon Airport was not being used by the US to transport weapons to Israel.
He told RTÉ the airport was not being used to facilitate the war in Gaza “or any war for that matter”.
Massive cheers in the Electric Arena at @EPfestival when these images are projected before @KNEECAPCEOL enter the stage. @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/3kF2lESfsu
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) August 17, 2024
The next image projected onto the screen read by Kneecap read: “Over 25,000 children have been murdered by Israel in 10 months.”
Gaza’s health ministry today said at least 40,099 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since 7 October.
The health ministry said this includes at least 16,456 children and over 11,000 women.
The toll includes 25 deaths over the past 24 hours, which also listed 92,609 people as wounded in the Gaza Strip since the current war began when Hamas militants launched a deadly attack on Israel.
This image was then followed by a message reading: “Get the US military out of Ireland”.
A Palestine flag bearing the message ‘Saoirse don Phalaistín’ was waved for the entirety of the set and close to the end of their performance, Móglaí Bap told the crowd: “Ireland is still occupied by Britain, but there is a worse occupation happening in Palestine.”
“Ireland is still under occupation by Britain, but there is a worse occupation going on in Palestine,” says @KNEECAPCEOL at @EPfestival before chants of Free Palestine. @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/vIYNZZo5cS
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) August 17, 2024
He then led the crowd in chants of ‘Free Palestine’, before telling the crowd: “Never forget, we’re from Belfast, a place still under British occupation.”
Earlier in the day when Dundalk band The Mary Wallopers took to the Main Stage, the messages were less overt but still present.
A Palestine flag had a prominent position on the stage and band member Andrew Hendy wore a t-shirt reading ‘Refugees welcome’.
Last month, the band led chants during a counter-protest to an anti-immigration rally in Dundalk.
.@marywallopers take the to main stage @EPfestival with a Palestine flag and “Refugees welcome” t-shirt. @thejournal_ie pic.twitter.com/t4GmAFWmXP
— Diarmuid Pepper (@Diarmuid_9) August 17, 2024
The band’s Sean McKenna also wore a t-shirt with a Palestine flag and an Ireland flag with the caption ‘One Struggle.’
The Mary Wallopers later dedicated their song ‘Building Up and Tearing England Down’ to the “so-called Irish patriots who drink with loyalists up the North”.
This was a reference to a ‘Coolock Says No’ banner having been seen with loyalist factions at an anti-immigration march in Belfast last month.
Meanwhile, contemporary Irish folk group Lankum also took to the stage with a Palestine flag present, at one point telling the crowd: “All our love goes to the people of Palestine.”
Later, they encouraged the crowd to work to “banish the far-right”.
But despite these acts and the positive reaction to them by the crowd, there was only a sparse crowd at a recording of The Echo Chamber podcast in the early afternoon.
Irish-Palestinian Zak Hania was due to be a special guest, but was unable to attend due to the funeral of a relative who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Hania was evacuated from Gaza in May, several months after his wife and children were able to escape.
Groves told The Journal that he believes this to be the sixth relative of Hania’s to have lost their lives “either directly or indirectly” since 7 October.
During the podcast recording, Groves attempted to put the low numbers at the event down to the fact that people don’t want to listen to the horrors of Gaza at a festival.
Meanwhile, actor Liam Cunningham told The Journal that “the kind of people who come to festivals are free-thinkers, they like music and diversity, and they want information from different sources”.
He was a guest at a ‘Voices for Gaza’ event held by Amnesty International at the festival.
Remarking on doubts that people want to hear about Gaza at events like Electric Picnic, Cunningham said: “We are not here to preach to the converted, there’s a lot of people here who have paid a lot of money to have a good time.
“But you should always give a little of that time to getting informed about what you could, or even should, be doing.”
He added: “So you can come along to events like these, then go ahead and have some fun.
“Get yourself a very expensive hotdog, go and listen to some music, have some fun and coming along to events like these won’t ruin your weekend but you’ll be doing the right thing.”
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