IRISH language indie rock band The Shan Vans have been featured on America's biggest radio station – National Public Radio (NPR) – where the lads spoke about their  upcoming single and their Palestinian solidarity work.

Speaking about the interview Jake Óg Mac Siacais from the band said NPR had read about the band through their articles in the Andersonstown News.

“We had an interview with NPR who are kind of like the BBC of America. They have 44 million weekly listeners," he said. “NPR were due to go to Dublin to speak to Blindboy and the artist Spicebag and they asked would we speak to them if they came up to Belfast and perform our track ‘An tSeanbhean' which we are currently working on.

“NPR said they had read the pieces about our music in the Andersonstown News and what we stand for – promoting the Irish language, making music that taps into that and also the work we’ve been doing discussing decolonisation and solidarity with Palestine."

Jake said the band have been very active in promoting solidarity with Palestine and expressed concern over the arguments which have been going back and forth over the upcoming visit of Irish politicians to the White House on St Patrick’s Day.

Speaking on the issue he said: “Our view is that politicians shouldn’t go to Washington this St Patrick’s Day and sit down with Genocide Joe but we also understand that others have stated their own reasons for going and we don’t want to end up in a situation wherein us supporters of Palestine are attacking each other as that is self-defeating. We all want an end to this and we all have our own ideas about what tactics are best to get this genocide to end.

“Our position is that we are totally opposed to anyone going to the White House because it gives cover to America’s support to arm Israel and sanitise Israel in the media. There is huge public pressure coming from activists and artists such as ourselves to highlight this to politicians and we are seeing a shift even amongst the most ardent supporters of Israel such, as in the UK’s Labour Party.

“There has never been a case before where the St Patrick’s Day visit has come during a time of an active genocide of a close ally of Ireland, the Palestinian people, but we understand it’s a question of tactics and we don’t want to see the movement take potshots at each other because this doesn’t help Palestinians."

With the release of the new single just around the corner, Jake said the band were also working with Palestinians in Belfast as well as local activists in helping to shoot a music video to accompany it.

“The video is almost a short film and it should be ready by late spring, in April. The song will explore decolonisation in Belfast from an Irish speakers perspective and remember the past so it won’t happen again in the future.

“It’s really important to us as young people from West Belfast to explore the language, our history and culture and once you begin to dig into these things it’s not long in seeing how rewarding and rich it is.

“People don’t feel connected to where they live anymore and communities have a lot less resources and the Irish language movement is going against that grain and we want to use rock music to explore that.

“We’re playing the song live at all of our gigs and we’re announcing a series of gigs coming up soon where people can come along and listen to the new track and we’re in talks with a number of festivals in Europe for the summer.”