Is it too soon, too unsettling, for pro-IRA chants to be trivialised?

When does “Up the RA” not mean “Up the RA”? When the England footballer, Declan Rice, who played for the Republic of Ireland before switching allegiance, apologised for using the pro-IRA slogan on a recently unearthed social media post he made as a 16-year-old. And his apology added to a strange revival of the aesthetics of Irish republicanism.

Related: Declan Rice apologises over apparent support for IRA on social media

The website Vice recently published an article headlined, “How militant Irish republican slogans went viral”, and they are on to something. The appropriating of slogans and imagery that were once dangerous is happening, and it is happening among a generation that lacks a memory of the peak of the Troubles, simply because they hadn’t been born. In 2019, “Up the RA” is layered and esoteric. For some, it’s mindlessly chanted without any context, bar a sense of misplaced patriotism and ignorance. For others, it’s subversive and transgressive; playing with a taboo with the safe benefit of distance. For yet others it is the trivialising of the slogan to the point of undermining the perceived power of the IRA itself – its authority is so depleted that it’s now a joke, and only the slogan remains as punctuation. Or, it’s just a dumb meme.

While an older generation may balk at “Up the RA” being used in such a throwaway manner, the context now is different, even if unpalatable. The use of such slogans has almost become cheeky or knowing. A new generation latching on to a signifier of an identity that formerly held much more weight is not unusual. Unfortunately it has also come at a time when there are renewed tensions over the border, and Brexit has reinvigorated the drive for a united Ireland.

On St Patrick’s Day in New York, the Belfast boxer Michael Conlan entered the ring at Madison Square Garden to the Wolfe Tones’ Celtic Symphony, with its refrain of “Ooh ah, up the RA”, a blunt display of tribalism to say the least. “People need to get over it,” Conlan’s promoter said in response to criticism, “because the Troubles are over.”

The reaction among Irish viewers to Alan Partridge’s rendition of Come Out Ye Black and Tans and The Men Behind the Wire in his latest series was curious, because most people found it hilarious. It was as if we were watching the sting being removed in real time. Meanwhile, at the St Patrick’s Day parade in New York, Mary Lou McDonald stood cheerfully behind a banner that declared ‘“England get out of Ireland”, something her political rivals jumped on, but a sentiment that speaks to Sinn Féin’s base, and quickly, inevitably, became a meme.

The rise of patriotism in Ireland among younger people feels more like claiming and shaping a contemporary Irish identity rather than sectarian. This irony, plus that storied Irish history of satire, absurdism and surrealism, matched with the edginess of joking about something that was once taboo, filtered through meme culture, has combined to create this current moment in Irish popular culture. Perhaps it is somewhat inevitable that a generation of Irish people who are unselfconsciously and confidently embracing national pride search for an aesthetic rooted in what is distinctively Irish. And the IRA is part of the Irish story, whether we like it or not.

There’s a tacit understanding that a lot of the mindless repetition of IRA slogans such as “Tiocfaidh ár lá”, “Up the RA” and “Brits out” is purposefully goofy – even if the latter two at least are offensive. “Still scream ‘Up Da RA’, but we never set foot out the south,” the Dublin rapper Kojaque says knowingly in the song Politicksis, followed by, “But I’d still smack the Queen in the mouth, ’cause I don’t know what I want and I’m willing to die to get it.” That line appears to be a callback to the 2008 Up the RA, a track from the Limerick artists Rubberbandits whose lampooning of republicanism and Irish idiosyncrasies scales the avant-garde.

When I interviewed the west Belfast act Kneecap last week – a hip-hop three-piece who were recently removed from stage at a university gig apparently due in part to their provocative lyrical content – they spoke about the freedom they have to reflect their society and surroundings because they didn’t experience the Troubles firsthand. Anyone who takes Kneecap’s lyrics at face value needs to watch their Interlude video, in which they lampoon anti-drug dissident republicans. Yet, the day after we spoke, another man was kneecapped in west Belfast on a Saturday evening.

So, is saying “Up the RA” mindless? Dangerous? Irresponsibly frivolous? Offensive? Yes, and no. In conversation it’s about context, and in art it’s about subtext. But for many people, it’s too soon, too dark, and too unsettling.

• Una Mullally is a columnist for the Irish Times