Remick wrote:Git wrote:
Ah, typical fucking Plastic Yank. Now at least, with the Boston bombs, you bastards finally realise what you were funding in my country for decades.
Honestly, go fuck yourself Git. The people who funded the IRA from America were Irish immigrants. Maybe if you actually let them have their independence the right way, they wouldn't have existed. But no, blame all Americans for what some Irish Americans chose to fund.
You seem to just be a bitter, pitiful man. /ignore
The people who funded the IRA from America were largely Americans of Irish ancestry, not immigrants. Amongst this you can count a few dimwits who thought they were Irish because they mistook their Scottish surname for an Irish one, as well as no doubt a few 'Redcoats Out!' chickenhawk dildoes, along with some well-meaning individuals who took Clan na Gael and NORAID's 'widows and childrens' spiel at face value.
However, before this comes across as sounding like a rant against Irish Americans - it should be noted that the provisional IRA's biggest supplier in terms of money, arms and training was Libya. In fact, the IRA was hardly dependent on US support at at all - funding tended to peak whenever news hit of the British doing something dastardly, but it was sporadic. In fact, the non-sectarian Irish charties such as the Irish American Fund - which itself had only a marginal interest in the troubles - amassed vast amounts more in the way of donations than Irish republican fundraisers did.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... erica.html
It must also be bourne in mind that the US administrations over the years has generally been pretty sniffy about the Irish republican movement, despite what one may think of Gerry Adams getting his chance to strut around the White House (and who is in something of an otherwise unrelated pickle at the moment, as allegations have now come forth that he might have turned a 'convenient' blind-eye to his brother's paedophile activities). The Original IRA was outright Marxist; and at the height of the cold war, such origins as pertaining to the Provisional IRA - along with its links to Libya - would have been noted by the US intelligence agencies. Bear in mind also that the US Dept of Justice won a court case in 1981 forcing NORAID to register the Provos as its 'foreign principle':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAID
Certainly, from the looks of things, it was only a small minority of Irish Americans (or at least a minority of Americans claiming some interest in Ireland) who contributed to these relatively small funds. Personally speaking, from nigh-on two decades of talking to USanians on the net, I've yet to have chat with an Irish American who isn't by and large indifferent to Irish/UK relations. And some, of course, have been quite outspoken in condemning the IRA (two prominent examples being PJ O'Rourke and the writer/broadcaster Joe Queenan).
Despite the oft repeated claim, then, that Americans funded the IRA, it's probably more the case is that only a very, very small minority of Americans contributed funds to the provos - funds which weren't even all the necessary to the IRA, either. It should also be noted that other Irish-concerned groups in Australia and yes, mainland Britain (where around 25% of the populace have Irish ancestry), are likely to have made some contributions too. So it's certainly unfair to single out Americans - and in particular Irish Americans - as having so much blood and their hands, when it clearly isn't the case.
Notwithstanding the fact that we also ought to wonder where the Loyalist terror groups got their funding from, and how deep the oft-purported collusion between such groups and the British military/intelligence services actually went...
