American funding of the IRA?

Question

How large-scale was the funding of the IRA by American civilians? How was all this funding achieved, and has it dried up completely now? If it has stopped, is it because of the IRA ceasefire or due to terrorist attacks on the USA?

Prawn74 - stick to the question, I don't want your sympathetic views on the IRA. Obviously none of your family members have been blown to pieces by them.

Prawn74 - how can you say that no funding was given by the American public? Have you been asleep for the last 35 years?

Answer 1

America citizens funding for Irelands struggle to once again become a free republic continues.
Those interested in that gaining freedom progress could visit Yahoo group...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/One_Ireland/?yguid=54503035
A tip of the hat to Edward M and Tony R, and add a wink and an approving nod to Prawn74.
Q. Why does the sun never set on the British empire?
A. Not even the Gods could trust an Englishman in the dark!
By the Good Friday Accord the I.R.A has disarmed...It is England that has Failed to live up to the terms!

Answer 2

NORAID, or Irish Northern Aid Inc, is the name of the organisation that allegedly funded the IRA with millions of dollars through donations from the American public. They are based in New York. The IRA were one of the most well armed and trained terrorist groups in the world, and that didn't come free. The US Department of Justice made NORAID register as an agent of the IRA, though NORAID have always denied any links with terrorism.

Ladymoonlight, am I to assume you are in favour of murdering men? Or that my life is somehow less important than yours?

Answer 3

9/11 did not stop the IRA, The IRA had given up the violent struggle long before that. The problem the IRA had was that in 30 years of terrorist struggle, they had managed to seriously piss off a lot of very well trained British military personnel. Personnel who, whilst bound by the honour of being in the military, could only 'police' the troubles. They were never allowed to go to war on the terrorists. And a good thing too, because going to war on terrorists, only breeds more terrorists. As we see in Iraq today. By the British acting under the rule of law, the IRA could not recruit ordinary people to support them. So they relied on extremists.

However, when many of the personnel left the military, they joined pro british militia's in the north and secretly went to war with specific and known elements of the IRA.

Because they where employing intelligenge and sound strategy against an identified enemy that they understood, they could isolate and eliminate many of the key players that had been keeping the struggle going.

Gerry Adams could see only 2 possible ways forward. Either try to massively escalate the violence and lose international support and finance, this would also result in the deaths of many many more catholics (including many of his own friends) and render Northern Ireland into a wasteland. OR negotiate a peaceful settlement acceptable to both sides.

Gerry Adams is a wise man in this regard.

This is how peace (of sorts) came to Northern Ireland and this process started long before 911.

911 merely showed Americans how it feels to be the victims of terrorism.

Noraid is still funding Sinn Fein, but as a charity.

The way the British ex-soldiers went to war on the key players in the IRA was completely different from what we see in Iraq. In Iraq, the USA have no clue as to who the enemy is, let alone what their motivation is or how they operate. When the head of the DOD admits that he doesn't even know the difference between the Shia and the Sunnis, you know the US has lost that war already!

Answer 4

The funding would have been by Irish immigrants and their descendants more than Americans, who believed in a united Ireland with no British influence, I would think that the funding is less than say 30 years ago but it will always be there as long as the British are still on Irish soil, I am British and proud of it but Ireland is for the Irish , it is about time the old colonial British gave up all the bits of land it took hundreds of years ago, they gave back Hong Kong and all the money in it to the Chinese

Answer 5

the scale of the funding from american peoplewas nil but from the irish/american people it was probaly considerable and why not the reason they wherein america was because of british cruelty over the years.Most of the english people answering these questions think it only started thirty or fourty years ago eight hundred years its going on this last thirty years or so hopefully will be the last for those who call the ira scum and murderers they learned it all from a good teacher the british 9/11 has nothing to do with ireland but it was used by blair to stifle support for the struggle in american politics. i have always said the america betrayed us (irish)be cause we fough with them against the british they let us downstill we will get there on our own

Answer 6

A lot of was through a group called NORAID, it was supposed to be a charity. I think it was based in Boston Mass. There are a lot of Americans who had Irish ancestors living there. I think that some of them I an idealised image of the IRA being freedom fighters, which some possibly were. The ones I came across whilst over there were just murders and thugs. The got a lot of money from extortion and drug dealing.

As far as scale goes it was not large scale in the money sense, Libya did a lot more in respect of funding and training. I think that it not stopped completely, but the money now goes to more acceptable areas. Some parts of the IRA are still active, especially the drug dealing and extortion, there are still daily punishment beatings going on.

I suppose the not-so-funny side is the Americans are now getting a small taste of there own medicine with the 911 terror attacks form people who they helped to fund in the past, what goes round comes round as they say.

Answer 7

the comparison between Islamic funding of terrorism and the IRA is laughable. a few Irish immigrants allegedly send some money back to Ireland (for the IRA or not) and you lot make this into some sinister plot!!

Answer 8

Noraid were the fund raisers.

Of course after 9/11 the Americans were not so enthusiastic about funding terrorism.

We tend to forget that one of the few GOOD things that came out of 9/11 was that it stopped the murdering IRA scum dead in their tracks. Terrorism just wasn't fashionable any more.

It took the United Kingdom hundreds of years to escape the grasp of the papish Black Bishop of Rome. We were hardly likely to give up these rights at the behest of some inbred potato famine thugs now , were we.

Answer 9

Its pretty bloody hypocritical for them to talk about "War on terror" when they were funding it for God knows how long.

IRA have slaughtered plenty of civillians many of them children including unborn twins in Omagh and a nine month old baby in Germany (they placed a bomb under her father's car).

Anyone who supports these murdering scum had best go and wash these kiddies' blood off their hands.

I hate their frigging murdering guts and I'm Welsh but of Irish Catholic Descent.


No one can condone the muder of women and children because you disagree with what their government has or hasn't done.

Answer 10

Its an open secret that the bombings and terrorist activities were partially funded by Noraid. Do a search and check it out