It is 12 noon in Bali, and two thirds of the patella sit on a sofa for a zoom interview. Dj Próvai is in Ireland, spending time to Derry, while Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara dip under the Indonesian sun, impatiently preparing for their “appointment with AF – swimming pool”.
“How many people go to Coachella?” Chara asks.
Bap throws a number – “150,000”.
“It would be less than that … 100,000”, reproduces Chara.
They are not far away, if you look at a single day of attendance. The “Sun Cream Brigade” self -proclaimed made the pilgrimage through the Atlantic to perform on the sacred terrains of music in Indio on Friday at 6.10 p.m.
The festival is a victory tour for the group after a capital year which included an album acclaimed by critics, a Quasi-Bafta winner and performances around the world. They may not feel exactly at home Under the stifling sun of the desert (Ireland obtains the rain from 150 to 225 days a year, depending on the location), but they always salute the opportunity with open arms.
“It's just an emblematic festival, even if it is renowned around the world to be S—,” says Chara laughing. “Everyone is just blown away that we are even in conversation.”
After all, they are the last of a small but fascinating group of Irish acts to appear at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. Before their inclusion, the scene was honored by talents such as Dermot Kennedy, Annie Mac and Hozier.
“Obviously, the crowds of the are known not to move too much,” jokes Bap. “But the right thing about the Irish, as we say, we are everywhere.”
“Give us a crowd of 1,000 Americans,” adds Chara. “As long as there are about 12 Irish, we can advance others.”
The group, which is well known for its revitalization and its use of the Irish, also does not think that the crowd will have trouble with the linguistic barrier. According to Bap, “we just have a lot of good and funny energy” and “keep people committed”.
For them, the Irishman is not only a language but a symbol of republicanism (no, not that Kind), which can be credited with the history of the language of elimination and to flow between extinction and existence.
From left to right, Mo Chara, Dj Próvai and Móglaí Bap appear in a scene from their winning film in 2024 “Knecap”.
(Helen Sloan / Sony Pictures Classic)
Its decline dates back to a few key events, including an omission from Irish schools from 1831 to 1878 and the great famine of 1845 – which tore the poorer rural areas, where the language was still prominent, resulting in a rapid drop in speakers.
“The ball joint represents this urban identity of the language which never really existed in Ireland,” explains Bap. “The Irish language has been around for a long time in Ireland, but it mainly only exists in rural areas like Galway.”
Even in a world after the 1916 Easter increase – when the Irish nationalists rebelled against British domination – government efforts to relaunch the Irish proved to be vain. As the Irish journalist and author Fin O'Toole notes, in the middle of the 20th century, “the self-moving joke was that most Irish were illiterate in two languages.”
The Irish government wants to “save and preserve the language, but in their own image,” says Bap, who learned the language at home. “They want it to be pure and innocent, so it is digestible … When it has always been a language of people and it's dirty.”
“I think there is like F – 20 words for the vagina … because we – everything else to do except sit and speak, have sex,” he adds.
The biggest boost received by the language was in 2003 when the official languages law required various institutions to make the services available in Irish. Northern Ireland would not see similar legislation before 2022.
Even so, “they do not use it in Belfast”, notes Chara.
“I do not think they had a real effort to try to revive the language. … I think that deeply, they do not believe that it has a value for them,” explains Bap. “If you look at the school system in the South, people learn Irish for 14 years and leave school and not really speak it.”
And the statistics support it. According to tIrish timesA 2022 census revealed that out of the 1.9 million that could speak the language, only 71,000 used it daily. This is why a modern implementation of Irish renewal is so crucial and why the ball joint is dedicated to avoiding it from the waste of time.
Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara de la Rotula occur on stage during the school evening in Bardot in Hollywood in 2022.
(Annie Noelker / For Time)
“Language, if it should survive, must be part of daily life,” explains Bap. “And daily life these days are made up of tiktoks and readings and Instagram.”
He also says that the more authentic approach to the group for the use of language is a key factor. Although they are not the first to try to make music in Irish, their daily use means that its inclusion in the songs sounds “effortless”.
But not all of them accepted their efforts: a subsidy request in 2023 turned into a high-level legal case after the conservative party head, Kemi Badenoch, blocked the distribution of funds for an alleged anti-British feeling.
“Well, they were right about it,” jokes Chara.
The Belfast group won the case at the end of 2024 and was paid $ 18,268 for an “illegal and illegal” exclusion. They then donated funds to two organizations from Belfast, Glór Na Móna and R-City Belfast.
“I think it was a big statement, because especially in the North, politicians … Paint a painting that Protestants and Catholics never get along. … They believe that we cannot exceed this,” says Bap.
He remembers meeting a young Protestant rapper who went by the young Spencer who had grown up in the working zone of Shankill, where R-City is. He then played a concert later alongside the patella, and they had “no problem getting along”.
“We can hear ourselves quite well, even if he might prefer to be in the United Kingdom and we would prefer to have united Ireland,” explains Bap.
“It is only in Ireland that these things seem to be the greatest things in the world,” he continues. “And I understand that politics is very divisor, but that does not mean that we should not all be able to hear ourselves, at least while waiting.”
