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> In the U.S., the second largest source of I.R.A. funds after Ireland itself, increasing attention is being paid to fund-raising activities among the 12.2 million Americans of Irish descent. Government sources in Dublin estimate that various individuals and groups in the U.S. have contributed $5 million or more to the Provos' war chest since the current troubles began in Northern Ireland six years ago, even though Dublin has tried to discourage such support throughout that period. There is still widespread sympathy for the cause, and open appeals for donations are sprinkled through Irish papers in the U.S. IT'S A SAD CHRISTMAS WHEN YOUR DADDY'S IN PRISON, reads an ad in the moderate Irish Echo for Eire Nua, (New Ireland), a Provisional front.
Several Americans have been arrested on charges of making illegal arms shipments to Ulster. The most celebrated case was that of the "Fort 'Worth Five," a group of New York Irish Americans who were imprisoned in Texas during 1972 and 1973 for refusing to testify before a grand jury concerning their alleged involvement in arms traffic to Northern Ireland via Texas; eventually, they were released. This year's pro-I.R.A. martyrs include the "Baltimore Four," two Irishmen and two Irish Americans who were convicted of conspiring to smuggle 158 rifles and other materiel from New York to Ireland.
Arms Traffic. A number of organizations, ranging from the respected 138-year-old Ancient Order of Hibernians to the relatively new American Committee for Ulster Justice and the National Association for Irish Freedom, have been active, in one way or another, on behalf of the Irish Catholic cause. The largest and probably most important American organization that supports the Provisionals is the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid), which has more than 70 chapters and claims a membership of more than 80,000. One of its officials testified before the U.S. Senate three years ago that American contributions do "not necessarily" go for guns but "might allow [Ulster Catholics] to purchase firearms wherever they might get them to defend the community [and] their families."
Noraid officials admit that some of their members may have been involved in arms traffic but insist that as an organization, their record is clean. Says Mike Flannery, 72, a national director of Noraid: "We do not have anything to do with arms in this organization. We have a job of relief to do, and we don't become implicated." Not that Flannery, an I.R.A. veteran who fought against the British in the 1920s, would not like to help. "If we had no law and I had the freedom to do it," he says, "I'd ship the whole U.S. arsenal over there."