Elvis Ate Dynamite

Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap has made a lot of waves in their relatively short existence. From their provocative name to rapping in the Irish language to their vocal support for Palestinian rights, they leapt from obscurity to international celebrity status in just a few years. So I did not expect the band to take a very different turn this week.

The story begins with a song called “Mam,” which band member Móglaí Bap, whose real name is Naoise Iarla Ó Cairealláin, wrote for his mother in 2020. In a statement he released on Instagram and in a recent story in the Irish Times, he explained:

“She was sick at the time with depression. The idea I had in my head with Mam was, if I wrote it, she’d hear it, and maybe she’d feel her worth, because when you suffer from depression, you can’t see your own value. 

“At that time, we went for a walk, and I told her I had written a song for her, but that it wasn’t completely finished yet, so I’d wait until the next day to play it for her. But by then it was too late.”

Before he could play her the song, his mother, Aoife Ní Riain, died by suicide.

When I read Móglaí Bap’s Instagram post earlier this week, it hit hard. It’s beautifully written, deeply emotional, and incredibly brave. In the post, he also mentions that he wrote a new song called “Irish Goodbye” for the band’s 2026 release, Fenian, addressing the enormous burden and the unique grief you feel when someone close to you dies by their own hand. The band also put out a short film to accompany the song, and it’s just as powerful as Móglaí Bap’s words.

Móglaí Bap’s post, the song “Irish Goodbye,” and the film released a torrent of feelings I wasn’t quite prepared to deal with.

When I recently posted a video about my brother John’s love for the Clash on the thirty-fifth anniversary of his passing, I consciously omitted the circumstances of his death. I did this partly out of respect for his and my family’s privacy, and partly because I want to remember the brother I knew and bonded with for the first three decades of my life. But Móglaí Bap’s statement was so profound and so important, I felt like it needed whatever amplification I could give it.

It’s a hard subject to talk about. For me, it’s the hardest subject to talk about. Yet, not talking about it is a huge part of the problem. In the “Irish Goodbye” film, a grieving mother, says, “We’re never going to have any answers,” and she’s right. Thirty-five years later, I can attest to this fact. We’re never going to have any answers.

But we have the right, and maybe the obligation, to be honest about what we went through and what other people are going through. We can’t bring back the ones we lost, but if we can do anything to help the living, then we’ve got to be as brave as Móglaí Bap.