Written by Kneecap racked up the highest vinyl sales of the week in the UK with their newly released second album FENIAN, but lost out on topping the official UK album chart to Michael Jackson’s 2005 compilation The Essential Michael Jackson.
Jackson’s compilation last topped the UK charts in 2009, spending seven weeks atop the chart following the singer’s death. The resurgence in sales and streaming figures for Jackson’s hits collection comes in the wake of the release of the critically-panned but commercially successful biopic Michael.
FENIAN topped the Official Vinyl Albums Chart.
On the Dan Carey-produced follow-up to 2024’s Fine Art, Kneecap promised “More darkness. More confrontation. More craic. More energy. More solidarity. More absolute bangers.”
Speaking about their return, and the album’s harder and more politicised edge, the provocative Irish rap trio – Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí – stated: “They tried to stop us by branding Kneecap ‘terrorists’, with cancellations, with statements from the Prime Minister himself. We had all the motivation we needed…this isn’t a swift reaction, but a considered response to those that tried to silence us. And failed.”
Last year, rapper Mo Chara – Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh – was accused of displaying a flag in support of the proscribed organisation Hezbollah at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, London on November 21, 2024 “in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a supporter of a proscribed organisation.”
In March this year, the High Court in London upheld a decision to throw out the case against the rapper.
The case against Ó hAnnaidh was previously rejected in September 2025 by chief magistrate Paul Goldspring at Woolwich Crown Court, due to a legal timing issue. On March 11, two high court judges, Lord Justice Edis and Justice Linden, rejected an appeal by the Crown Prosecution Service and upheld Goldspring’s decision to rule the charge unlawful.
Kneecap’s solicitor, Darragh Mackin reacted to the decision by saying, “The rule of law cannot be clearer. The prosecution of Mo Chara was unlawful from its very inception. This prosecution was a legally laughable witch-hunt. A witch-hunt that was born at Coachella, cultivated in Westminster, and comes to an end in West Belfast. There are better ways to spend British pounds than pointless prosecutions and pursuing expensive appeals. Today’s decision brings this expensive circus to an end.”
