Arms for Ulster
The Irish-American file
Godfrey Barker
England versus New York, Boston and Chicago: are we really fighting a new American Revolution in Northern Ireland? Last week's ransacking of the QE2 by police and soldiers, at least the third the great lady has suffered since 1971, was a fresh reminder of a disturbing fact. It is that among the 16.4 million Americans of Irish descent there is higher emotional commitment to the IRA struggle, more money forthcoming to pay for arms and explosives, greater readiness to see Britons murdered indiscriminately, than exists in Cork, Dublin and a dozen Irish Republican cities put together.
It is New York and Chicago, and the 'three rifles a plate' banquets thrown for the Irish rich by the Irish Northern Aid Committee, that have provided the Provisional IRA with at least 4,000 Weapons since 1969. At the start of these troubles, when the Provos split away from the Official IRA in 1970, a battered armoury of Thornpso..._,
ns Enfields and Garrands descended to the breakaways from previous IRA camPaigns. It is Nor-Aid, the most successful of five Known fund-raising organisations, combined With intimidation rackets, bank raids and thefts from US Army dumps, that has fitted out the
With the sniper's dream weapon: the ughtweight Armalite, with which over 250 British soldiers have been murdered, and ,eciniPned a bedraggled and bankrupt guerrilla force with a modern armoury. The Armalite, or 'widow-maker' as it is affectionately known, has played more than an Isncidental role in IRA successes since 1969. Manufactured in California, it is supplied to the Us Army as the M-16 and can pierce a flak Jacket at 500 yards. But it is the sporting version, known as the Armalite AR-15, which has reached Ulster in bulk in the false bottoms of crates on board trans-Atlantic ocean liners. Weighing only 71b, thanks to a plastic forearm putt and an aluminium frame and magazine, it can be dismantled into several pieces and has Proved ideal for the urban guerrilla: brought to a... hideout by five or six women, assembled, red, and as rapidly spirited from the scene in handbags or pockets, it has been indispensable to 'the single-shot sniper' in Ulster. Eighty per cent of Armalites captured there have proved to be of Us origin. The money generated by Irish sympathisers in North America is impossible to assess. Irish Northern Aid, whose headquarters is a shop in the dusty centre of the Bronx, filed accounts With the Federal Government from 1971-3 show show ing remittances to Ireland of £60,000 climbing to £200,000; supporters have claimed since that the total has reached £250,000 a year. The Money, received in Dublin by IRA veterans Joe Cahill and Joe Clarke, is designated for the relief of distressed families, but clearly frees a substantial portion of IRA funds for other 137,11,rP°ses. Equally clearly, the cash involved in gun-running to Ireland — which the Justice "e„.._Partment, despite twelve indictments since 1.u12, more pending, and the congratulations of Me British Government, has failed to come to grips with — appears in no committee's a,„ccounts Its dimensions were indicated in the May 1974 trial of four Irish-Americans in
Baltimore, who had a standing monthly order for 100 Armalites at £70 each with a Maryland gun dealer, and who were convicted after 10,600 rounds of ammunition and 158 Armalites were found in their possession,. In Ulster, over 1,600 American weapons have been captured by the Army — sub-machine guns, carbines and pistols as well as the Armalite and other high-velocity rifles.
In vain have the Cabinet Ministers of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael toured the Irish Republican clubs of New York, Boston and California, the eighty-plus chapters of Nor-Aid in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Philadelphia (with a membership of over 80,000), explaining that Irish-American dollars are getting Irishmen killed. Last year Dr Garrett Fitzgerald, Ireland's Foreign Secretary, said on one of his repeated visits to New York that 900 of 1,100 people then dead in the troubles were "Irish people", adding bluntly: "Every dollar bill contributed to agencies such as Irish Northern Aid contributes to the killing of the Irish." Mr Jack Lynch has repeatedly urged Irish-Americans to channel charity through the Irish Red Cross; Mr Erskine Childers declared that they should stop altogether rather than
finance arms.
In vain, also, has the United States Government — under pressure from London — refused visas to Mrs Maire Drumm, Joe Cahill, and other Ulster veterans of the American fundraising stomp. The money, normally transferred to Ireland in cash in the pockets of Nor-Aid officials, continues to pour in. Even wealthy Republican Party members see no difficulty in supporting Nor-Aid, which unequivocally backs the Provisional IRA; the more Marxist, civil-rights-associated groups — the Irish Republican Clubs of America, the National Association for Irish Freedom — attract a poorer clientele. It is not simply because there are more 'Irishmen' living in America than in Ireland (approximately four times more) that the communities of New York City, Chicago and Boston show such primitive hatred of the
British. Historically', since their mass arrival in New England between 1820 and 1870, they have shown more passion over the Irish conflict than the Irish in Ireland — except, perhaps, in the battle years of 1912-23. The generation of two and a half million who fled the famines, the workhouse, the poverty and oppression of British landlords between 1841 and 1851, only to meet cholera, dysentery, ship fever and typhoid. on the overcrowded packboats between Liver-pool and Quebec (whence they walked down into Massachusetts and New York), were especially inclined to regard the Irishmen who stayed in the home country as `puddings' — countrymen who failed to stir in the face of British tyranny. Political consciousness among the immigrants remained high: for, bankrupt, diseased and unwelcome, they stuck together in tight communities, and are the only national group in the US bar the Puerto ricans who,have failed to disperse significantly beyond their ports of entry.
Hatred of the British financed a multitude of Irish political societies in New York between 1850 and 1870 (most notably St Tammany), all dedicated to the relief of Irish-American poverty and to the overthrow of British rule in the homeland. The tradition does not differ, and has not weakened, one hundred years later. The Irish expatriates read the problems of Eire and Ulster with minds uncluttered by the doublethink in Dublin; to them the removal of British soldiers and British rule is an immediate and absolute priority. To the New York fanatic, Mr Cosgrave and his government are men who have compromised with their captors, who have done business with the enemy, and who continue to delay ultimate Irish reunification by parleying with the British oppressor.
Small wonder, therefore, that at a New York congressional panel last month convened by Representative Lester Wolff, successive speakers referred to "sheer savagery" in Ulster "which threatens to surpass the genocidal mania of Adolf Hitler," "almost unbelievable tyranny and oppression" (this from Mr Paul O'Dwyer, president of the New York City Council), to British troops "roaming the streets of Northern Ireland's towns and cities, suppressing full political expression," and to Britain persecuting Roman Catholics in face of "the outrage of the Western world." The meeting, a prelude to a full investigation of Ulster problems by the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, which seems likely to do more damage to Anglo-American relations than Senator Kennedy's outbursts in 1970-71, heard eighteen voices on behalf of the Provisional IRA and none for the Irish or British Government points of view; several speeches pleaded for an end to the nine-month-old 'ceasefire' and a resumption of full hostilities. Peace has not been good for business: on paper, Irish Northern Aid sent only £45,000 to Ulster between January and June this year; and Bloody Sunday stands as an eternal reminder that nothing stimulates the funds so well as the sight of blood.
It may be a pointer to the next unexpected development in Ulster that Mr Thomas Gleason, seventy-five-year-old leader of the 116,000 American dockers, told the New York congressmen that his union would not hesitate to boycott all British goods exported to the United States if he .thought it would force realistic peace negotiations. Mr Gleason need have no doubts on that score. But, for the British Government, establishing diplomatic relations with the Irish of New York may prove ten times as hard as reaching accommodation with Dublin.
Previous page
