Exiled Children
Noraid came into existence with the eruption of conflict in the North of Ireland from 1969 onward, after nearly half a century when the IRA was a marginal force that attracted little attention from the outside world. As the conflict intensified, Irish Americans witnessed the violence via nightly TV news segments. Some of them decided that they wanted to help the Irish republican movement from the other side of the Atlantic.
Founded in 1969, Noraid became the most important US fundraising operation for Irish republicans during the Troubles. Its mission statement described it as “an American-based membership organization that supports, through peaceful means, the establishment of a socialist and democratic 32-county Ireland.”
As historian Brian Hanley notes, the 1970s was a period that saw a general rise in ethnic awareness in the United States, and Noraid positioned itself as the defender of an Irish identity under siege. The group grew to include branches in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Hartford. However, as John McDonagh remarks in the documentary, New York City had “always been the cockpit for Irish Republicanism. . . . [During the Easter Rising], it was a great honor when they read the [1916] proclamation at the [General Post Office] and it said ‘her exiled children in America.’ You’re looking at them.”
Noraid volunteers canvassed NYC bars with inky copies of the Irish People newspaper, asking for donations, or for patrons to buy tickets to dances or banquets. “In later years,” Hanley writes, “Noraid claimed its role was primarily as a support group for prisoners’ families; but in the heady atmosphere of 1970–71 it more or less openly canvassed for funds for arms.”
Pub socials, boat rides, and card drives became staples of Noraid’s fundraising, as well as a wide variety of merchandise, including T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers with the formula “26 + 6 = 1,” meaning that all thirty-two counties of Ireland should be united. While opponents of the IRA in Ireland itself often spoke as if Noraid was composed of misguided Americans, its core membership was in fact dominated by Irish-born republicans, at least in its early years.
Throughout the 1970s, the United States was the most important source of weapons for the IRA, including the ArmaLite rifle that became a symbol of the entire campaign. The most prolific gunrunner by far was George Harrison, who had been active in the IRA during the 1930s before emigrating to the United States.