July 2025

An Anglo-American audience is a mixed blessing for an Irish artist. Pro: you get their money. Con: their opinions, too.

The Irish hip-hop trio Kneecap have exploded in popularity since last year’s film about them. They now have less time for Irish-language poetry events in Dublin. They have also attracted international controversy, which they say is a bad-faith reaction to the pro-Palestinian solidarity they have been expressing in Ireland for years without a problem.

In the UK in May this year, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – stage name ‘Mo Chara’ – was charged with displaying a Hizbullah flag while saying ‘up Hamas, up Hizbullah’ at a gig in November 2023. Following a hearing last month at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, he was released on unconditional bail to appear before a judge again in August, with a defence team that includes the barrister who helped free the Birmingham Six.

I met the great Iranian novelist Mahmoud Dowlatabadi in 2006. We had the same publisher, and through them he sent me a message inviting me to tea at the Azadi Hotel in northern Tehran. At one point he told me: ‘Everyone says great writers know what to write and how to write. But everybody can figure that out. What matters is knowing where to write from.’

I was too young to get his point. Many of Dowlatabadi’s books are set in his hometown in Khorasan, and I assumed he was championing a sort of primordial loyalty to one’s origins. I didn’t want to be that kind of writer. I longed to be metropolitan and worldly, the kind of eastern writer the West notices and praises. It wasn’t until two decades later, in June 2025, as I watched Israeli jets bomb Tehran with impunity, that I understood what he meant.

The Ministry of Veteran Affairs, established in 2018, oversees housing, healthcare and financial support for former soldiers. But the road from the front to these reintegration programmes can be long and winding.