European Document/The Boys of the I.R.A
Greer, Herb
EUROPEAN DOCUMENT THE BOYS OF THE I.R.A. by Herb Greer The world, as they say, little noted nor long remembered a remarkable statement made during August in London. The words were uttered by the...
...This is the quest financed by American contributions to Noraid and similar groups...
...Even those who take the trouble to see Ulster for themselves remain astonishingly ignorant of what goes on there, and of the actual machinery of government...
...Under Mrs...
...In fact the mainstream of popular Irish nationalism has never been friendly to these violent Republican groups, whose ferocious anticlericalism has also been disliked by the Catholic Church.* Even during the period after World War I, in the last election before partition, the extreme Republicans secured only a minority of the vote...
...After his conviction he crowed in an interview that he had been tried in a Diplock court...
...It is the habit of Noraid and their Irish-American Bund to attach the "fascist" label to Protestant extremist groups in Ulster-though the murderous activity of these fanatics has been primarily reactive in the present troubles, with no doctrinaire aim except the preservation of Ulster as a U.K...
...support for the Provisional IRA, Sinn Fein, and the INLA is not Irish but American...
...In August, when a batch of Noraid supporters made a pilgrimage to Belfast to rub cheeks with Provisional Sinn Fein and the IRA, one overenthusiastic American joined a riot against the police and was arrested...
...The goal would not be far-fetched in a relatively small island seriously unsettled by the presence of a million frightened and armed Protestants, and with Republican terrorists enjoying the cachet of forcing the British out of Ireland, plus continued lavish financing from their American fans...
...This is usually summed up as the "reunification" of Ireland-which has never been unified except under British administration...
...their means to this end was the violent action Man elite, which would then rule Ireland...
...Another area of ignorance that journalists and politicians have done very little to clear up is the actual purpose, policy, and long-term aim of the Provisional IRA and their fellow terrorists, the INLA...
...When the recent precursors of today's Republican terrorists drew together in the nineteenth century, they were unconHerb Greer is an American playwright and writer living in Europe...
...One British Army veteran who had served in Ulster summed up the rankers' attitude to Paisley like this: "If we could have shot the bastard, most of our troubles would have been over...
...It is fair to observe that the Republican cabals have been a reaction against a history of British misrule in Ireland...
...Thus a Minister of Ireland's legitimate government has in effect placed Noraid and its cognates in the role of backers for one of the few fascist organizations in Europe that is actually (and regularly) killing people...
...His activities, which range from the sinister to the ridiculous, are reported with a certain distaste (sometimes disgust) in British national media...
...I would guess that very few Americans-even those professional shamrockers who claim a special interest in that region- could recite even the name of the Irish Foreign Minister, much less remember any of what he said...
...It is worth noting that the principal stimulus for such support as Paisley still enjoys in Ulster remains the existence and criminal acts of the Provisional IRA and the INLA...
...Amusingly enough, Noraid is actually giving aid and comfort to Paisley, by sending money and arms to their Republican terrorist protdge's...
...But he did have the excuse that Hitler represented Germany...
...Stephens's co-conspirators fostered the present style of assassination and random bombing, the mystique of violence later echoed in fascist doctrine, and the murder, torture and mutilation of dissenters still practiced by Republican cabals in Ulster...
...The leader of one of these, the "Reverend" Ian Paisley, is sometimes portrayed in America as a kind of villainous British super-patriot, though he is intensely disliked by the bulk of the British electorate...
...The words were uttered by the Foreign Minister of Ireland during an official visit...
...It exists among a group whose links with Ireland are generally notional and sentimental, and whose awareness of Anglo-Irish affairs is determined by a period spanning the late 1840s to about 1922...
...This habit has not entirely died out in Ulster...
...It seems to have escaped American notice altogether...
...These traits were given an ideological edge with German-style blood-and-soil rhetoric and a falsified, racist version of Anglo-Irish history which is popular among Irish-Americans today...
...It trumpets the struggle of a "Celtic" people (which does not exist) against a racially distinct British "Saxon Invader" to restore an Ancient Irish Nation (which never existed...
...Similar urgings to "make peace" were much in fashion in another decade, and finally acted upon by a British statesman whose name was Neville Chamberlain...
...Thatcher this is not likely, but she will not last forever-and the American sponsors of these Irish terrorist groups are notoriously persistent...
...In Britain more than a few journalists and politicians are willing to assume that "withdrawal" (i.e., expulsion of Ulster from the U.K...
...Avoiding such unpleasant prospects, they prefer to urge "negotiations" with these unrepresentative cabals despite the killing, despite the implacable drive to domination, and despite the intention to stage just such a coup...
...in other words, a provisional dictator...
...Their attitude to rule was well summed up by James Stephens, founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, who said as early as 1858: "I believe it essential that the center [he meant himself] of this or any similar organization should be perfectly unshackled...
...His statement was an observation that Provisional Sinn Fein and their killer clones, Provisional IRA, are "blatantly Fascist...
...will transform the terrorists into good chaps who would cause no more trouble for Britain or Ireland or anyone else...
...This is odd, in that the Provisional IRA could neither kill nor propagandize to the extent that it does without generous financial and moral support from Americans...
...It remains curiously unstressed not just in Britain but everywhere that Ulster is reported that the real constituency of Irish terrorist groups is foreign...
...None of these people may have considered what a successful left-wing fascist coup in Ireland would mean, not just for Britain but for Western Europe and the United States...
...Their aim was to sever all ties with the British crown (most Irish nationalists did not want this...
...third, the imposition of a centralized and single-party dictatorship rather like that which exists today in Nicaragua...
...The days of the Protestant Ascendancy in the old style are gone forever, with the Unionist Party split into quarreling factions...
...Today Provisional Sinn Fein has no electoral support of any weight in the Republic of Ireland, and very little in Ulster, where their wretched ward-sized successes have generally rested on a split or intimidated vote...
...The only broad popular *But the Church has not hesitated to exploit them where it could get away with it, for political purposes...
...province, and sectarian revenge for IRA and INLA killings...
...This is like not knowing the difference between a federal circuit court and a justice of the peace, and shows how foreign the Americans are, even among those whom they profess to support...
...A more detailed and seldom publicized expression of the terrorist purpose would read like this: first, the expulsion of Ulster from the United Kingdom...
...The number of Americans who probably believe this is awful to contemplate...
...The real tragedy of Ulster is that so many people are being needlessly killed, and that so many Americans are being gulled into subvening this slaughter, in the name of terrorists who represent nothing of any democratic significance in Ireland.ficance in Ireland...
...The word "fascist" in this context is not mere abuse...
...Whether the cabals and their foreign constituency will finally wear down British morale and score real political gains in Ireland is a question that may yet be answered positively by outside pressure and the vagaries of British electoral politics...
...What is not well known in America (and surprisingly little known in Britain) is that they were only a part of that reaction, and not the greatest part...
...The old-fashioned dictator has given way to a collective group operating on the lines of a Latin American junta, so that these "Republicans" share the delights of both Left and Right extremism...
...Today the phony history is supplemented with a so-called socialist ideology matching that of left-wing fascist regimes such as Cuba and Nicaragua...
...For the (American) record, the name is Peter Barry...
...second, exploitation of the consequent unrest to destabilize Ireland, with a campaign to destroy the present system of government there...
...In fact he was brought before a magistrates' court...
...cerned either with democracy or with popular support, standing as they did outside the mainstream of Irish nationalism...
...This very interesting proposition was relegated to the back page of London's Daily Telegraph, did not appear in the Times at all, and rated only a passing mention in one TV news spot...
Vol. 16 • November 1983 • No. 11
