the IRA

it's been common knowledge/rumour here in the UK that much of the IRA funding has come from the US. Can anyone explain why this is? Seems a little odd to be anti-terrorist and yet support terrorists in another UN nation...

After reading about the history of ireland I do agree with the reasons for the actions of the IRA. However I completely disagree with their methods - my parents both lost friends in northern ireland due to terrorist action

In my experience of meeting both Irish and American relatives and others, the Irish-Americans who have moved to the US, some of who still see the IRA's fight against the invading British Government as a noble cause and put up the cash.

Yes, funding came through an organisation called NORAID.

After 9/11 the US government stopped some organisations in the US that gave money to Northern Irish terrorists... which was a very intelligent move... except that the only organisations they froze the funds of supported the loyalist side of the argument. NORAID was allowed to carry on as usual... despicable.

I do know all my friends were Irish and they are more friendly with Americans than your common Briton. If that sounds racist, than I will have you know it is just my analysis of my personal exeriences. As for funding terrorism in America, yeah it's done, don't think it is so hard to believe. As for the IRA funding, you got me. I know nothing about that organization. Yet there are others out there they get our helping hand, that black hand of the CIA and the State Department. Those are different subjects and should be spoke of at different times.
That's my two cents.

[Edited on 12-3-2003 by Abraham Virtue]

The funding is coming from private US citizens (not the US government) who sympathize with their cause. Personally, there are other ways (than terrorism) to get your views across...

Yes Gazrok, it's fair to say that the money comes from private citizens. But the US government has the ability to freeze the funds, so that means that the US government is just looking the other way in this case.

apologies if I was unclear in my initial post about who the funding was coming from. I do not believe it to be the US government, but instead private groups and individuals

Touchy subject where I live, I have lifted my mate of the ground with half his body missing due to an IRA bomb that went off in 1995.

I have seen about 50+ IRA Bombs in my short life so far, use to shake the windows in my house every two days or so at one stage in my life, Its hard to comment on what is going on within Northern Ireland and what has went on in the past, My fathers car was blown up and his name was found on an IRA hit list in Andytown in Belfast, some of his mates were killed and things were real bad for years, I can remember when I was about 10 years old being very aware of what was going on with the Provos and cringing in my bed most mornings as my father started his car, sometimes just waiting for the bang.

It was and still is sick what happened in my country, I was blasted one time in Portadown for having Catholic friends, ( blasted i.e got me # kicked in),I went to Queens University in Belfast for 3 years and met some Catholic people up there when I lived in Belfast, I got to know them as friends and had to sneak them into my house at the weekends for parties as we lived in a student house in the very loyalist UVF & UFF Village part of Belfast, just up from sandy row.

I was always aware of IRA funding by the US Government and I do mean the Government and not just private firms, the Ira inmates down at the Maze prison Lisburn used to make things in the hobby shops like harps and things out of wood and sell them to firms in the US for big amounts of money, the money would the be shipped through to the IRA and INLA for bombs and guns and suchlike,

I could write for hours about this subject but I know that everything has been said before, some very very evil things happened in this country and especially around my home place in the countryside.

Northern Ireland has a lot of walking dead, Co Armagh (AKA) The SAS Playground.

Darren I was aware that you would have some personal input into this one and am sorry if it's a touchy subject.

Do you feel the situation is any closer to being resolved? If the outside finance of the IRA was halted would it help, or is the problem far more to do with personal attitudes than firepower?

Good point, and I would hope, in cases where they know of it, that they are doing so. I doubt they are looking the other way...especially in today's climate....

Good question.

I used to think that it was the mindset of the older generation in Ulster that made things drag on like they are, the old UVF UFF UDA LVF Crew, But I have to say that I was wrong, you see the thing is with it being such a small country north and south almost everyone knows someone or several people who were killed by whatever group, Ulster has a population of 900,0000 and this makes it real to everyone, that hate does not go away over night, I was always made aware when I was growing up who the enemy was and still is to this day, and its got nothing to do with the good Catholic people of Northern Ireland.

People think that things have chilled out over here, that the Ira has been on ceasefire for years now and the loyalists have been good boys too, sorry to say that total lies, the fact is and it is a fact, the people of Ulster were sold out by the British Government when the new labour came into effect,(that�s why you will hear so many people such as myself say the words, BRING BACK MAGGIE, Margaret Thatcher was just about the only one who took no S**t from the IRA she did not and would not negotiate with terrorists. But that aside, As long as the IRA keep there hands (and Bombs) Of the streets of England and out of the main land (ie) England, London, the British Government sees things with rosy tinted glasses on.

No I don�t think that there will ever be peace in Northern Ireland, I don�t think that the people will let it happen, Its not the older generation you have to worry about anymore over here, it�s the young lads, you have no idea how wild it is over here at this time, the younger lads are so mad in the head, its sometimes funny the things they do, but not funny haha, funny what the F**K!!.

I am in my lower 20�s and when I was about 15-ish to 19-ish I ran with the crowd. We got up to some stuff I can tell yee, wee jimmy, Ginko and Darren lol, If there was a riot we were always in the thick of it, if there was a bottle of Buckfast to be drunk and a few bits of wild old crack to be had, we were always there. BUT we always ran with the British Army, they were our army our lads our boys fighting with us ageist the IRA and INLA.


When we were hit by the provos we were hit hard, damn hard, sometimes you had to do things you did not want to do, just to get through it, sometimes you had to hit back doing things you would never talk about, things you dream of, things you don�t want to remember, but that was the way of it that was life and when you knew no different.

You can take the firepower out of it, but you will always have the mindset and will to do things, if you take my gun away and a man wants to kill me, I will break his neck or hit him with a hammer. And that�s what your up ageist in Northern Ireland.

One night at the top of a road, one of the famous Shankill Butchers (and this is how they got there name) was killing a catholic trying to saw his head of while he was still alive with a wood saw, the army was coming up the road, in seeing this the shankill butcher put his feet on the young mans shoulders grabbed his head and then tried to pull the mans head off, the mans neck was broke and he died, just one of the Shankill Butchers stories, the only thing about wee stories over here is, all of what you hear happened and if anything they left bits out as not to seem to mad in the head.




[Edited on 12-3-2003 by PureDarren]