Irish Cinema Explored: Stephen Rea, Daniel O’Hara, and Kneecap on Language, Identity, and Culture in Fluent Dysphasia and Kneecap

Fluent Dysphasia (2004) and Kneecap (2024) seem worlds apart on paper and screen. In the prior comedic short Stephen Rea’s Murph, who struggles to communicate with his teenage daughter, awakens after a drunken night finding, Kafkaesque, not that he has become a cockroach but that he can now only speak fluent Gaeilge and has not one lick of English. The film is almost monochromatic, the colours muted and washed out. It reminded me at the time of another short Irish language film Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom from the colour palette alone. As it turns out the director, Daniel O’Hara created both. The latter Sundance award winning film is a hedonistic, largely fictionalised, biopic about the founding of the rap group Kneecap that considers themes of personal identity, cultural obligation and familial ties through a mountain of cocaine, ketamine and alcohol. It glows in a plethora of light, warm and inviting, cold and harsh, a kaleidoscopic cinematic rainbow. Tuesday night past, October 8th, the actor Stephen Rea, director and writer Daniel O’Hara and the Kneecap lads came to the Theatre in my home town. The purpose of this conversation? To talk about their films and despite the twenty years between both, what they shared in common and what had changed in the Irish language scene since.

The Market Place Theatre in Armagh City is a large white brick building, halfway up the hill where one of the two cathedrals in the city sit. Its auditorium space extends belly like over the local Omniplex Cinema. Hanging in the open reception area is a multicoloured neon glass sculpture, ‘Murmur’ by Kevin Killen and two wall size canvases by local artist and musician J.B. Vallely. An Táin Bó Cuailgne and The Sons of Ushach at Chess are powerful abstract works of thick paint dollops, darkness and light intermingled. They depict scenes from the Ulster and Red Branch Cycles of Irish Mythology. They hang over the foyer opposite the glowing tubes of  neon lights. Someone in the bar mentioned to me that there may be opening announcements in Irish and English before the event. I was informed, correctly, there was no need for that since the discussion was largely in English. It made sense. Rea has little Irish, although his children attended naoigh scoils. I think the organizers missed the point ever so slightly with the announcements though. The evening’s events were sponsored Aonach Macha, Gael Linn, Curzon, Wildcard Distribution and in part by the BFI. The night opened with a screening of Fluent Dysphasia. My memories of O’Hara’s previous work were shared by Kneecap. A memory of being sat down in our secondary school Irish class for a screening of Yu Ming Is Ainm Dom. But while the Kneecap lads could quote the film verbatim, I, on the other hand, had only a vague memory of the late great Frank Kelly in a pub, telling a Chinese fella as gaeilge that his Irish was better than a lot of the people on the island. The bartender then remarks to another patron “I didn’t know Frank spoke Chinese.”

The talk was hosted by the Northen Irish journalist Rebecca Ferguson and throughout there was mention of the “Culture Wars” that have been taking place in the last few years, where language reform is concerned at least. But perhaps the term “War on a Culture” would be better suited. On September 8th a new £340 million state of the art transport hub, the Grand Central Station, opened in Belfast. On the twelfth of September Irish language campaigners staged a peaceful protest in the hub, protesting the lack of Irish language signage in the building. A Dream Dearg and their spokesman, Dr Pádraig Ó Tiarnaigh, made their positions clear, that after several years of petitioning the company, the lack of action by Translink (the monopolistic public transport service in Northern Ireland) to incorporate the indigenous language of Ireland and the native language of half of the peoples of Northern Ireland reflects the exclusion of an entire community. Translink have maintained that their policy is to incorporate the Irish language signage as the building is further furnished and that the Irish word “Failte” can be found among several other international languages on a welcome sign in the building. A Dream Dearg remains skeptical of Translinks commitment. Why should they have dragged their feet on this issue? It’s not an economical issue surely. The building cost £340 million. A few extra letters, a fada here and there on signs already going to the printers anyway would hardly have bumped that budget up much further. Even if it had the Translink company receives extreme amounts of funding from the Belfast City Council. How much more expensive could those signs, those letters, have been than the current Poetry in Motion campaign being run in conjunction with Ulster University? (A project, it must be said, that prioritises how we view our country through language.) Is the issue of these signs cultural or technical? Could Translink only find printers willing or able to produce signs as Berla? For Dr Ó Tiarnaigh it’s sectarianism through and through. The wilful exclusion of one culture over another.

The panelists did not dive into this negatively deeply. The auditorium was packed to the rafters, mostly as it turned out with gaeilgeors and young people, fans of Kneecap first and foremost.. When Ferguson prompted Rea on what the Irish language community meant in Ireland, Rea, born to a Protestant Belfast family with sympathies towards Irish Nationalism, joked “I’m from here so everything’s political.” It occurred to me that the Irish language meant something very different in the south where it was taught in schools going back as far as the foundation of the state, whereas Irish language schools in Northern Ireland only began to operate in the past thirty years. In the south it may have been picked up and discarded on a whim, a sentiment echoed in the reaction of a Dublin Bus conductor repeating shallow tourism phrases and idioms to Rea’s character Murph. In the north, during the Troubles and just after especially, it could be an expression of identity, of a peoples’ right to identity as they see fit.

 Liam Og of Kneecap reacted to a question from the audience with the statement “Speaking the Irish language in this country is seen as a political act” although he also stressed that to the group itself the speaking of the language is only an expression of their identity, it is not to them a controversial act or one done for controversial attention. Neither Kneecap nor Rea and O’Hara’s intentions for creating films in the Irish Language were political. They (actor, director and rappers) all made clear to the audience that to use the language was not a political statement, it was not an exertion of cultural bias. For O’Hara it was a medium of film that had not been explored in Dublin in 2004. TG4, the Irish language channel, was less than ten years old and, in its infancy, could only offer Irish language programs that were translated crime films or soap operas centred around gaeltachts (small, often rural districts of Ireland where the Irish language remains the prominent vernacular.) Fluent Dysphasia was a way then for O’Hara to bring the Irish language out of the quaint wilderness and into an urban setting organically. During the discussion O’Hara even went so far as to say that there was “no mission statement” in creating films as Gaeilge, only that it was a medium no one was utilising at the time. It was to him, and Kneecap seconded this, art as expression alone. Rea agreed. He thought that the films were good because of the lack of preaching or pedantry, because, put simply, they were good films before all else, regardless of the language they were presented in.

The evening was not as intense as I let on, there was laughter every other remark, Kneecap are sharp. You could cut yourself on their wit. They play off one another beautifully and thrive in the vibes of an audience. The woman sat next to me could not have been in her thirties yet. She giggled and applauded at the smallest provocation.. Stephen Rea for his part was quiet and reserved, entering into the fray when prompted (often forgetting to use his microphone) but getting laughs. Kneecap got howls. There was a handshake between Rea and DJ Provai, a vague promise to a future collaboration which received riotous reactions from the auditorium.

But to look at elsewhere in Belfast and the Irish language community in the past week, it was recently released in city council documents that a council owned leisure centre in East Belfast received arson threats during a consultation process to put Irish language signage up alongside English signage at Lisnasharragh Leisure Centre. This official document was marked “not for publication.” Threats continued during the consultation period, with those opposed to the signage beliveing this wa some how a roundabout way to a united Ireland. This news story was released a few days after Loyalists (those loyal to the United Kingdom, who traditionally consider themselves British) in County Derry forced the cancellation of an Irish for beginners class in Castlerock. The Minister for Education Paul Givan met with individuals from the Loyalist Communities Council (who have ties with the loyalist paramilitary groups UVF, UDA and Red Hand Commandos). They expressed their concern and displeasure over an Irish Language school being opened in East Belfast which has been a traditionally Unionist constituency. Paul Givan is a member of the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party) and the Member of Parliament for the constituency of Belfast East. His colleague Gordon Lyons, Minister of Communities also met with the LLC this week after continuously shying away invitations to attend GAA matches. Similarly, or rather in anthesis to this, the Irish Language campaign group Conradh na Gaeilge were declined a meeting with Mr Givan as early as February of this year “without explanation.” Mr Givan in the past week has also doubled down and defended his meeting with the LCC, despite ministers from other parties questioning it and demanding he answer “hard questions” about his actions. The LCC’s point was that the local unionist community had no desire for an Irish language school and that there was no requirement for one in the area. If that’s the case let it open! Let it flop. Be vindicated in your beliefs. No?

Although here I reference Ulster Unionists in a purely academic way, (letting those of you in the dark know who and what they are) it must be stated that at no point in the evening were they mentioned. The Kneecap lads made reference to the outrage often directed towards them by politicians, who they would not name, but they made no reference to political parties or affiliations on either side of the sectarian division. They said they were unabashedly and unashamedly Irish Republicans, that they believed in the possibility of a United Ireland in our lifetimes. They did not degrade, belittle or disgrace any other culture, language or peoples. That said, they noted the symbiotic (or rather parasitic) relationships certain politicians had with them. Where Kneecap acts, the politicians will be there to fan the flames of controversy and stoke their own beliefs and rhetoric on the fire. Naoise said that in Northern Ireland “our mere existence speaking Irish is controversial…[however] I would challenge anyone to find a statement or quote, public or private, where we are sectarian.” Liam Og made the point, which I had echoed in my review of their film, that to the lads the Irish language should be normalised in this country. They believe that speaking Irish should not be a controversial or political thing. It is an expression of identity, it should not be an affront to another culture.

So it has to be asked what boogey-paddy men are the LCC afraid of? The protest in the Grand Central station was peaceful. The protesters did not hide their faces, they left with their demands unfulfilled but made plain to the media what those demands where and the legal routes through which they chased them. Why does the presence of the Irish language threaten loyalist groups and unionist politicians so? Do they believe that to celebrate one culture means the extermination or oppression of another? That all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others? Is it simply and plainly the old chestnut of themun’s aren’t the same as usun’s? 

I can’t answer for them, I’m not a unionist or loyalist. I have no issue with the Irish Language, Ulster Scots or English being used in Northern Ireland. Nor would I presume to speak for all unionists, just as the radical few that threaten to burn down their own council buildings do not. But I have an idea of how they think. In Northern Ireland to identify as one thing is to say you are not another. I am Irish therefore I am not English. I am a Catholic therefore I am not Protestant. The Unionist identity works much the same. They are British, not Irish. To be an Ulster Unionist is to be inexplicably tied to Britain (even if the English people often overlook your existence). To be separated from the U.K. by the Irish Sea is torture enough without the insult of a sea border, a rational imposition to avoid breaking the Good Friday Agreement post-Brexit. The UVF were willing to fight the British Government in 1913 when the threat of Home Rule (certain local law making such as agriculture and education being deferred to Dublin from Westminster) was threatened. They were in complete opposition to a border in the Irish Sea being imposed by the UK Conservative government (whom the DUP backed throughout Brexit). Under this mentality, with the rising popularity of the Irish language in Northern Ireland it makes sense that they feel threatened on all sides. Irrational sense but still sense in their minds. To speak Irish is not to speak English. In recent years we’ve seen the Sinn Fein party (Irish Nationalists) become the largest political party in Northern Ireland. A self-identified Irish Catholic is First Minister. A border poll is being considered within the next twenty years. The Northern Irish state was designed to never let these things become a possibility and yet, a little over one hundred years into its being, here we are. The Irish language is not a front Ulster Unionists believe they can afford to lose on if they want to exist much longer. Its presence is oppression of them, at least in their minds it is. It must be fought, and defeated and slain.

I do not believe the vast majority of Irish language speakers feel this to be the case. Yes, Irish may be tied to their cultural and national identities, it may seem to be a tool of protest through the decades directly linked to political figures, groups and even the Catholic Church. Would they like to see a United Ireland someday? Absolutely. But just as a regular Spanish speaker in the Falklands may not be planning to overthrow the British Government, a regular Irish speaker in East Belfast isn’t out to destroy the Ulster Unionist identity or their community. 

Towards the end of the evening DJ Provai made a point that stuck out to me. The reaction towards the Kneecap film abroad has been staggering and humbling to the band members. Many indigenous people, Native Americans, South Americans, etc have been inspired to return to the roots of their languages, to find in them “an intrinsic value that cannot be taken away.” Kneecap is bewildered, baffled they have found the success they have. The Irish language was never their focal point; their intention was never to begin an Irish language revolution, the pedestal they find themselves on was hardly the destination they planned for.

I heard the argument often in secondary among lads that wanted to go further in their Irish language studies and those who did German or French or Spanish. They’d say there is no point in keeping on Gaeilge. It won’t serve you in a career, especially not outside of Ireland. That’s still the argument with education. Irish is becoming urbanized but slowly. The sacred cultural hubs of Gaeltachts are declining year upon year as rural communities begin to dwindle. In education STEM subjects are prioritised, are consistently pushed upon young minds as more integral to their futures than langugues or the arts could ever be. There can only be value in something if it can make you money. But DJ Provai’s words ring clearer than all that STEM propaganda that’s drilled into students, was drilled into me. There is an inalienable value to self expression, to identity in whatever medium or language we find to better embrace it. Our culture, our history, our language. Through these we understand ourselves better. Without them we are not lost but unfulfilled. As someone unfulfilled I know this all too well. What little Irish I have is precious to me. Being in that room I felt, for a brief moment, in my home town, though I could only catch words (go mo leithsceal, ceol, go raibh maith agat, ní thuigim) of the Q&A, I knew that this feeling was belonging. That was worth far more that the £8 ticket price.