by gillsfan1066 » Thu Apr 18, 2013 4:37 am
Garawa has hit it on the head, 99.999999999999% of Americans have never had any interest in Ireland, The IRA or the internal wranglings of the whole Irish situation Americans as a group did not send money to the IRA . That would be like saying everyone that went to Wembley for the Wigan /Millwall game was a football hooligan and should be locked up.
You think Americans living in Kansas or Nebraska , New Mexico or Mississippi or anyone number of other States ever sent money to the IRA, lol, your crazy , lol,most Americans had never heard of them and sure as hell never sent them money.
Maybe in a towns like Chicago /Philly/Boston all of which have a large Irish immigrant populations , (as many as 120,000 are of Irish decent in Chicago ) some people sent "gifts" to the IRA. They were doing what they believed in, was that wrong ?
Looking back on the stupidity of the whole situation the lives so needlessly lost, the misery and anguish that pieces of crap like Paisley and Adams thrived on just to hear their own voices, the whole situation makes me really not very proud.
Apart fro St Patrick's Day when everyone is Irish ,lol, most call themselves American , their Irish heritage no longer feels relevant.
My children born here have never had any "connection" with England, they would not dream of calling themselves English American, the same goes for most first and second generation children of all races here, they are proud just to call themselves American.
How many sent money to the IRA ,who knows, old timers who remembered the Easter rebellion ,maybe a few of what I call the football hooligan element. How many Yugoslavians sent money home in the early 90's when there country was at "war" ? Most IRA money in the beginning came from Libya, lol, I guess all those Libyan Irish had strong feelings towards the homeland.
You will always get the hard core groups, the fanatics, The Union Guys I am sure they sent money home , it was for the "cause" to get the English out of "their country", bit like most of the other countries around the World we so happily raped and pillaged for centuries did one way or another.
I would guess there were a lot more Irish people working in the factories of England and living in the bed sit world of London and Birmingham, Coventry or Liverpool that sent money "home" than there ever was Americans sending money from America.