Is it possible to leave politics out of entertainment anymore?

Updated / Thursday, 24 Sep 2026
07:00

For some artists, taking a stand means risking more than a few headlines. Pushing back, speaking out and holding firm on your beliefs is easy, after all – until there’s something to lose.

This month, we witnessed several artists willing to sacrifice major professional opportunities for their principles. Macklemore revealed that he had been asked to leave Ed Sheeran’s Loop tour because he had used his platform to air his forthright views on the situation in Gaza. Sheeran, he said, had been pressured to remove him from the bill by the tour’s promoters and a group of stadium owners, including billionaire Robert Kraft. Sheeran responded by issuing a statement claiming that the decision was made “by the promoter, not me”. When the tour resumed in Philadelphia at the weekend – minus Sheeran’s backing band Beoga and the three other support acts that had dropped out in solidarity with Macklemore – the singer told the crowd that he had “never wanted to be an activist musician, but this has put me in the middle of an important and passionate argument about freedom of speech and the most complex political issue on the planet.”

No matter where you land on the issue, it has ignited a fierce debate amongst fans, centred on three main arguments: should we separate the art from the artist? Do artists with a platform have a responsibility to speak out on those aforementioned “complex political issues” – or at least let their fans know where they stand on them? And in an increasingly polarised world, is it even possible to leave politics out of entertainment anymore?

The fact that two of Sheeran’s former support acts were Irish is striking. Beoga are long-time collaborators and friends of the Suffolk native, even co-writing the megahit Galway Girl with him in 2016 (although let’s not hold that against them.) The Antrim folk band first played live with him on hisDivide tour from 2017 – 2019, and were once again acting as his backing band on his globalLoop tour, which began in January and is set to run until December. Yet as they said in their statement announcing their departure: “As musicians, playing to those crowds every night is the stuff of dreams, but to play in venues that silence anyone advocating for a Free Palestine is simply not an option for us.”

No matter where you land on the issue, it has ignited a fierce debate amongst fans.

Rising Irish artist Aaron Rowe relinquished a similarly huge opportunity by dropping off the tour. The Dubliner has yet to release an album and arguably has a lot more to lose than the long-established Macklemore, as well as Finneas and Lukas Graham – but he made his stance clear with his statement. “I don’t take the decision lightly,” he wrote. “Ed has been a friend to me and has changed my life, I could never thank him enough for this. But as Irish people, we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation… I need to be true to myself and my ancestors who resisted colonisation, and fought for a freedom that I enjoy today in Ireland.”

The Irish have a history of taking a stand, even when it’s difficult to do so. Ireland was one of the first countries to boycott Eurovision 2026 in protest at Israel’s inclusion, and Ireland will not participate in the 2027 contest, nor will it be broadcast on RTE next year. Kneecap have paid a professional price for their outspoken support for Palestine, from cancelled shows and festival appearances to literally being barred from entering Hungary. The Mary Wallopers had their sound cut at a festival in Portsmouth last year for refusing to remove a Palestinian flag from their stage. In 2024, all ten Irish acts set to perform at SXSW withdrew from the festival in protest at its sponsorship by the US Army and defence contractors including RTX (formerly Raytheon).

That history of Irish artists taking a stand goes back further than the genocide in Palestine. In 1986, Ronnie Drew and The Dubliners, as well as Mary Black, were among the acts who pledged not to play in South Africa until its apartheid system was dismantled (which eventually happened in 1992). Drew said that the band had been asked to play there in 1969 or 1970, but “just refused out of hand to go, because we knew the situation there.” On the other hand, acts like Joe Dolan, Phil Coulter and Foster & Allen had no such qualms and toured or performed there before apartheid was abolished. All three acts, plus several others, were placed on the UN Centre Against Apartheid’s blacklist in 1986 for failing to pledge that they would not return. Drew’s response? “The principle of the thing is I wouldn’t go, no matter for what amount of money.”

Other artists, like Christy Moore, have never shied away from airing their views on social and political issues; Moore has been a vocal campaigner for everything from workers’ rights, to Palestinian solidarity, to the H-block hunger strikers in the 1980s. And of course, U2 frontman Bono has been famously political over the years – from the band’s various protest songs like Sunday Bloody Sunday, to his Drop the Debt and HIV/AIDS work via the ONE campaign. Like Sheeran, however, the band were criticised for failing to declare their stance on Gaza, even though they had both been outspoken about Russia’s war on Ukraine in recent years. The band’s four members would go on to release a lengthy official statement in August 2025, saying “We are not experts in the politics of the region, but we want our audience to know where we each stand.” Drummer Larry Mullen wisely noted in his own statement how “Silence serves none of us.”

In hindsight, it’s easy to look back now and applaud the artists who took a stand on issues like apartheid and condemn those who didn’t – but in thirty or forty years’ time, will we be having the same conversations about Palestine? In any case, perhaps artists should be mindful that history may not remember every song, every gig, every festival slot or every record-breaking tour – but it tends to remember who was willing to walk away from them when it really mattered.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ