Kneecap’s Fenian reaches Number Two in UK as band pledges sales profits to charity

Kneecap have pushed an Irish-language album further into the mainstream than any before them. Their second studio record, Fenian, debuted at Number Two on the UK Albums Chart in its first week of release, and the West Belfast trio say they will give all sales earnings from the record to charity.

Fenian arrived on May 1 as the follow-up to 2024’s debut Fine Art, and features guest turns from Kae Tempest, Radie Peat and Fawzi. Its Number Two placing eclipses the Number 42 peak that Fine Art reached last year, making Fenian officially the highest-charting Irish language album in UK chart history.

The only album ahead of them was The Essential Michael Jackson, a 2005 compilation that has been propelled back up the chart by the new Michael biopic; that collection previously returned to Number One in 2009 after Jackson’s death. On the same week’s chart, Melanie C scored her highest-ever solo placing — and the best showing for any Spice Girls solo LP — with Sweat at Number Three, while Kacey Musgraves’ Middle Of Nowhere landed at Number Seven.

Charity pledge and the politics that follow

Writing on Instagram, Kneecap declared they “have decided to give all our earnings from these sales away to three organisations”, naming The Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London alongside Belfast groups Glór na Móna and %%LINK:https://visitbelfast.com/listing/cult%C3%BArlann-mcadam-%C3%93-fiaich/97372101/|Cultúrlann McAdam Ó Fiaich%%. The gesture folds the band’s commercial breakthrough into an explicitly political response to the moment that has defined much of their recent public life.

The record’s title, they have said, is “inspired by, and proudly named [after] warriors in Irish folklore” — a word that was later weaponised as a slur. “Now we’re using it to name everyone speaking truth to power,” they added when announcing the album earlier this year.

Fenian has also been met with critical approval: NME handed the album four-and-a-half stars, writing, “Put all the rage-bait headlines aside and what you’re left with is a solid, progressive and fearless album from a group that could just as easily be dicking around instead of making music that matters. In that sense at least, their day has come.”

Legal battles, public scrutiny and art

The record’s arrival follows a high-profile legal episode for rapper Mo Chara (Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh). In 2024 he was charged over footage from a London gig that showed him allegedly displaying the flag of Hezbollah and shouting “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah.” The band have consistently denied supporting either organisation, arguing the footage was taken out of context and dismissing the case as a “carnival of distraction”. Chara has said he didn’t know what the flag was when he picked it up, and the band asked fans to attend their three court appearances in solidarity.

The initial decision to dismiss the charges came in September on the basis of technicalities in how the case was brought. The Crown Prosecution Service appealed in January, but that appeal was rejected on March 11 when two high court judges stood by the original ruling.

Asked in an NME In Conversation interview whether the legal situation had shaped the album, Chara said: “I didn’t see it as pressure. Obviously, we do thrive in the chaos, and sometimes it’s easier to deal with things when it’s so chaotic, and you’re onto the next thing. We understood that there were a lot of eyes on this album. Second album syndrome is quite intense for a lot of bands. We knew if you were a Kneecap fan and had been watching what had been going on for the last year, you’d be very disappointed if there was no mention of it in the album. Of course there is, and we wouldn’t let you down.”

The band’s profile has also met more mundane forms of pushback: posters for Fenian were censored in London after Transport For London reportedly rejected the design, a decision their manager Daniel Lambert publicly criticised.