missbunny:
So, if I understand correctly, Michael Collins made Eamon De Valera.
Oh, he did, Strainger, he did.
missbunny, I really like you 
Béagán agus a rá go maith.
(Is that right?)
Long live The Big Fellow!
Who doesn’t like missbunny? 
I’m surprised that you get dirty looks from people in Boston. ';ve have definitely heard “real” Irishmen say that Irish-Americans should just shut the hell up about the Troubles, since we don’t have a clue what we’re talking about. It was my impression that IAs were much more pro-IRA than their Ireland-residing brethren.
FTR, I used to have a “Support the IRA” sticker on my car, so I’m probably not the best judge of who has militant feelings where.
I think Necros is spot on. Actual support for the IRA is much more prevalent among Irish-Americans than among actual Irish people.
I guess it’s a lot easier to support random violence against innocent people when it’s several thousand miles away than when it’s on your own doorstep.
Aw, you guys … (blush) …
I also agree that Irish-Americans are much more likely to support, or at least not see anything wrong with, the IRA.
Interestingly, the people who saw my book on the subway and muttered a negative or disapproving comment were clearly Irish-from-Ireland. Any Americans who have ever remarked on it always said something in a cheery voice like, “Oh, the IRA, that must be interesting”; whereas one Irish man got up and moved after announcing that he “waren’t going to set next to anyone who reads about those bloody heathens.”
It’s true that the IRA gets a disproportionate amount of support from people who’ve never spent more than a couple weeks at a time, if that, in Ireland. However:
This comment ignores the fact that the IRA’s support is highest in precisely the area that has been subjected to the most violence, i.e. the North and the border regions.
I’m not ignoring it, but it’s a question of what scale of comparison is a fair one. You could argue that support for the IRA is strongest among IRA members, who are closer to the violence than anyone else. The bottom line is that casual support for the IRA is more widespread among Americans than among Irish people. I suspect that it has something to do with American concepts of race, nationality and national identity, which are peculiarly essentialist. Look at the number of times in this thread alone that people have had to specify something like “Irish-from-Ireland” to make it clear that the “Irishman” to whom they were referring was not actually an American.
I could be wrong, of course (about support for the IRA): this is sort of a guess based on the views of the Irish people I know round here and the people I have met while visiting Ireland. I have never, ever heard an Irish person say a single good word about any of the terrorist groups. In fact, the only people I have ever heard express any support for the IRA are British left-wing student poseurs of the SWP type and Americans.
The other thing is, the character of the violence is different in those areas from elsewhere. The punishment beatings, kneecapings and shootings tend to attract less opprobium than the bombs because they are seen as being more targeted, and not a threat to “innocent” people, especially when the victims are suspected drug dealers or car thieves. It’s the same kind of mentality that leads to people turning out in their thousands for Reggie Kray’s funeral.
In certain parts of Belfast, there may also be a more or less justified feeling that the local terrorist group provides a certain level of protection against the rival terrorist group which the RUC does not. I can understand that, but it’s not an argument in favour of terrorism per se. Just because the IRA is a terrorist organisation, it doesn’t follow that everything it does is terrorism. Some of is is vigilantism and some of it is for-profit organsied crime.
In any event, I’m sure you’re not arguing that the people of Omagh or Eniskillen or Lisburn, or the people who live on housing estates which are governed by criminal gangs go around paying the kind of casual lip-service to the IRA that many Americans do.
“Eve, thank you for not making a Lucky Charms joke.”
—How could ye say sich a thing, me lad? Why, Oi’m as Oirish as Nora Bayes herself, Oi am!
Well, there’s a couple things you have to take into consideration here. First of all, there are more people - far more people - that consider themselves “Irish-American” than there are Irish Irish people. So if you’re talking a pure numbers count, undoubtedly you’re correct. Proportionate to the population, though, is another question (and one I couldn’t answer).
Also, I think a lot of it depends on how you define “support”. I know well that there are plenty of I-Ams who sing the praises of the RA - but are they really “supporters”? If so, surely you’d have to say the same about the Irish who shout “Sinn Féin! IRA!” during the chorus of The Fields Of Athenry at pub singalongs - and trust me, there are plenty of them.
I’ve got this analogy to Manchester United supporters in my head but I can’t really be bothered to work through it
“Essentialist” is a strong word; I’d consider that simply a dialectical difference. In American English it’s perfectly acceptable to use a word such as “Irish”, or “Italian” or “Mexican” to refer to ethnicity and not just nationality. I’m not sure it’s peculiarly American either (any Canadians reading this? Do you do that up there?); certainly there are 2nd generation Irish in England and Scotland who still think of themselves as Irish, and English people of Pakistani descent are still often referred to simply as “Pakistani”. I’ll admit Americans do it more than most, though.
Anyway …
I have. Most of them fall into the category of simply singing pro-IRA songs in pubs, a few are rather more dedicated than that. I even know a couple dedicated Continuity supporters. I am not claiming they are representative of the Irish in general, I know they aren’t, but they do exist in larger numbers than you realize.
The violence doled out in those areas by republicans, you mean. Actual terrorist/sectarian violence in those areas isn’t being committed by republicans, though they do of course bear responsibility for continuing the cycle of violence which leads to loyalist attacks in those areas.
Spot on. Catholics in those particular areas - and it’s not just West Belfast - often see the republican paramilitaries as their only defense against loyalist (and RUC) violence, a major reason the rank-and-file IRA supporters are opposed to decommissioning.
I can’t speak for those towns because I haven’t been to them, but I have been to the Falls, the Lower Ormeau, the Bogside and the Brandywell, and I’ve been through or by housing estates of both communities. Those are precisely the places where everyone has lost a family member or friend to the troubles. They are also precisely the places where paramilitary support is highest.
Try “The History of the Irish Race” by Seumas MacManus. Great book - starts off in the haze of the Dark Ages, and moves on all the way to the 1920’s. The author knew Eamon DeValera and Michael Collins, and was involved in the Easter Rising. I think an edition was re-printed a couple of years ago.
One thing to remember about the IRA is that what they were in the '20’s is not much like the IRA of the '70’s 80’s and 90’s that planted car bombs and such. The IRA started out as a brave group of men fighting for their independence and (mostly) winning it.
The Easter Rising is memorialised in a truly great Irish folk song, too, called “the Foggy Dew”:
As down the glen one Easter morn
to a city fair rode I
There Ireland’s lines of marching men
in squadrons passed me by
No pipes did hum, no battle drum
did sound its sharp tattoo
But the Angelus bells o’er the Liffey’s swells
rang out in the foggy dew
Right proudly high in Dublin town
they hung out the flag of war
t’was better to die 'neath an Irish sky
than at Suvla or Sud el Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath
strong men came hurrying through
While Brittania’s Huns with their long range guns
sailed in through the foggy dew
t’was Britannia bade our Wild Geese go
that small nations might be free
But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves
or the shore of the great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side,
or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their names we would keep where the Fenians sleep,
'neath the shroud of the foggy dew
The bravest fell and the requiem bell
rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide
in the springing of the year
And the world did gaze in deep amaze
at those fearless men, but few
Who bore the fight that freedom’s light
might shine through the foggy dew
And it’s down the glen I ride once again
and my heart with grief is sore.
For I parted then with valiant friends
whom I never shall see more.
But to and fro in my dreams I’ll go
and I’ll kneel, and pray for you.
For slavery fled, oh honored dead
when you fell in the foggy dew.
Maybe the Irish people you know don’t want to show even mild support for the IRA in Britain?
I know lots of people who are supporters of the armed struggle. I even know a ex-member of the IRA who was involved in at least one “action”. There is a very large no. of people over here who will sit around and sing rebel songs and say anti-British statements. During the last few years with the movement in the peace process and the IRA ceasefire it has changed slightly and more people are changing their opinions on how the 6 counties will be returned.
There is also a difference in the way people looked at different actions. The Warrington bombing for example had almost no support what so ever but a soldier killed and the street of the bombing of the hotel in Blackpool during the conservative conference where looked at in a different light by a lot of people over here.
Hopefully all this shite is behind us and everybody over here will turn their passions towards peaceful and lawful means but there will always be a small group of people that want the armed struggle to continue for a lot of different reasons.
Just one small correction to my earlier post: I have been though Omagh, briefly. We passed through a loyalist area just on the outskirts, near the Derry roundabout. Apparently the pain the town suffered at the hands of RIRA hasn’t kept at least some of its residents from supporting further paramilitary activities.
Sorry for hijacking your thread, Ike. I’m pretty sure Ourselves Alone is still in print over here. If you can’t find anything else suitable, let me know and I’ll send you a copy.
BTW missbunny at DubDope last night we were trying to figure out your Irish phrase, well I think I’ve figured it out: Beagán le rá agus é a rá go maith - Little said, and said well. Is that what you were you trying to say?
ruadh, that’s pretty much it. I learned it as “say little and say it well,” or “say little, but say it well”; I’m not sure which is the more correct translation.
I wish I had been at DubDope!
Kilt-wearin’ man, The Foggy Dew is one of my favorites, too. Great song.
Ike, we(Dubdope crowd) were touring Dublin today and went to Trinity College to see the book of Kells. While there I saw a book Rebels: The Irish rising of 1916 by Peter De Rosa. I haven’t read it but the reviews are very good.
I bought it for you and if you mail me your address I will mail it to you with personal messages on the inside cover from me, TwistofFate, Coldfire, Globe Trotter, Spiny Norman and tatertot. 
Book’s full of messages and ready to go. You could send a Box address or something like that if you want to
:bump:
Ruadh, fair points, all of them. For the record, I was referring to casual support rather than more active support. I think the former is if anything more distasteful. Likewise, I can sympathise with the Protestants in Northern Ireland, but I detest the English cretins who sing “No surrender to the IRA” at football matches. And I think I can see where your Man U analogy was going here.
It was Brighton, and I think that it was looked on in a different light by a lot of people over here as well, but possibly for different reasons.
Book alert: I am reading the new book “The Cooper’s Wife is Missing,” by Joan Hoff and Marian Yeates. It’s about a real-life murder in Ireland in 1895. A lot of the book (too damn much of the book, in my opinion) is about Irish political and religious history.
Not that I object to that, but when you get a book about a murder, you wanna read about the murder, not about Parnell and Archbishop Croke and all that. But it does give a good background to The Troubles.