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RTÉ News
09-07-2025
- Politics
- RTÉ News
NORAID: Irish America and the IRA - inside the new documentary
Documentary maker Kevin Brannigan introduces his new documentary NORAID: Irish America and the IRA, a two-part tale telling the astonishing story of the role played by Irish Americans during the conflict in Northern Ireland, which premieres on RTÉ One on July 9th and 16th. Belfast, August 12th, 1984. A few thousand people have assembled outside Sinn Féin's Connolly House, in the Anderstown area of the city. They have all spent the day marching under the watchful eyes of the RUC and the British full apparatus of the security state is on display. Police Land-Rovers, guns, dogs, helicopters. It's the 13th anniversary of the start of Operation Demetrius, better known as the introduction of Internment, when the British Army had rounded up close to 2,000 people, the majority of whom were nationalists, imprisoning them without trial. But in this scene at Anderstown something else other than simply marking this date is at play. Something is about to happen. Then it happens. In our film we pause the footage a split second before the plastic bullet is fired, when we hit play again the RUC bullet travels through film frames and into the chest of 22 year old John Downes. The father of one dies. In the moments before Downes' death, an American man in his 30s had been introduced by Gerry Adams MP onto the speaking platform. Before the American utters a word, the RUC, with batons drawn, rush forward to storm the platform. They want to arrest Martin Galvin. Death and injury follow. The American slips away. Why had the British Army been deployed in great numbers onto the streets of Belfast to apprehend this American? Why had the RUC caused a riot and in the melee killed a young man to get to this American? Who was he and what did he represent? The American was a New Yorker by the name of Martin Galvin. He was the spokesperson and face of a US group called 'Irish Northern Aid'; better known as NORAID. The group had been formed at the outbreak of the Troubles in 1969, with the stated intention of raising money for the families of imprisoned or dead Irish Republicans. Through access to exclusive archival accounts and interviews with members of NORAID our film explores this mostly forgotten but vital component of the conflict in the North. Watch a clip from NORAID: Irish America and the IRA By the time of the anti-interment march through Belfast in the summer of '84, NORAID had become such a thorn in the side of the British state that Martin Galvin had been banned from entering Northern Ireland. This banning order and his subsequent appearance alongside Gerry Adams on that speaking platform is what led to the riot on that day. But NORAID was much more than this one incident. Their members acted as the Republican Movement's eyes and ears in America. Fundraising, demonstrating, propagandising and, for some, gun-running. NORAID were a crucial part of Sinn Féin's strategy right up until the mid-1990's. In making this two-part film we travelled throughout New York, New Jersey and Boston, interviewing former NORAID members, IRA gun runners, gangsters, a bi-liturgical priest in his 90s from Limerick and a one-time FBI agent, who served on the NORAID beat. For the first time on film, we have put together the story of militant Irish Republicanism in America during the conflict in the North. It's a story that leads the viewer into back-rooms with the infamous South Boston Gangster Whitey Bulger and ultimately into the White House. But, at its core, it's a story of Irish immigrants, or those of a second or third generation, who had a deep connection to their country of origin and who were anything but the Plastic Paddy stereotype. The scorn poured on their intense activism by the media in the Irish Republic also acts as a mirror to the attitudes of those living in the South during the conflict. Did those of us in the 26 counties resent this American ''interfering'' due to the embarrassment of our lack of action, fueled by censorship under acts such as Section 31? Our main aim with this film was to tell a story that is either misunderstood or not known at all. NORAID were a crucial part of Sinn Féin's strategy right up until the mid-1990's. It was NORAID lobbying that helped focus minds in the Democratic Party on the North of Ireland. NORAID agitation that led Bill Clinton — then a candidate for the Democratic Primaries – to declare on television that, yes, he would issue a Visa to Gerry Adams if elected President. Clinton, of course, won the presidency and it's around this time that NORAID moved off the stage. Financiers and powerbrokers, elite men who once would have not deemed Gerry Adams acceptable company began to occupy the position that NORAID once held. But there's a lot more to it than that. Myself, Jamie Goldrick, Niamh Learmont and Faolán Carey travelled the East Coast of America meeting the people who formed the backbone of NORAID. We wanted them to tell their story for themselves. No talking heads guide you towards how you should feel about the characters or their actions. It's for the viewer to make up their mind from watching and listening to first hand testimony. Watch a clip from NORAID: Irish America and the IRA We also wanted to capture the high-jinks and devilment that come with being part of an organisation that's operating outside the accepted norms. History should never be cold or boring in its retelling and with the characters we met and interviewed that was never going to be an option. Our film should also help frame the Irish relationship with Americans through a different lens, that of international solidarity, the opposite to Shannon Airport being used by the US military. While also reminding Irish people just how deep the love of one's native country stays within the hearts of immigrants down through the generations.
Irish Times
06-07-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Noraid: ‘They started to run it down from the early 1990s – They said I had an image as an IRA supporter'
Ernie O'Malley's pub on East 27th Street in Manhattan, between Lexington and Third, is where those of Irish birth or lineage gather to watch GAA matches from a place many still call 'home'. Next Wednesday, July 9th, however, the pub will be crowded not to watch GAA, but for RTE's latest documentary, Noraid : Irish America and the IRA, the story of Republican fundraising in the United States during the Troubles. Now ageing, the group will include Martin Galvin, Noraid's public face for decades; New York cab-driver, newspaper editor and radio presenter John McDonagh; and Father Pat Moloney, jailed for four years for a 1993 Brinks Mat heist, which he still denies. The documentary, directed by Kevin Brannigan, evocatively captures New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and the controversies surrounding an organisation blamed by the Irish and British governments, and by Washington, for raising money for IRA weapons. READ MORE Throughout the two-part documentary, the organisation's members agree on a few points – the proper title of the organisation was never Noraid but, rather, Irish Northern Aid and it never bought IRA guns. Irish-American members of Noraid protesting in New York in the 1980s Few outside the organisation have ever, or will ever, call it Irish Northern Aid, however, while few among two generations of Irish, British and US police and intelligence figures will ever accept its denials about weapons. Galvin adamantly rejects the allegations, however, pointing out that it was investigated repeatedly by the FBI and others: 'I would have been put in jail, if that was the case,' he tells The Irish Times. Equally, British intelligence had its own eyes inside Noraid since Sinn Féin figure, Denis Donaldson, outed nearly two decades later as a British informer, worked with it in New York in the early 1990s. Martin Galvin in New York in 2024. Photograph: Faolan Carey '[He] had our books open. If we were sending money back, or it was being diverted to IRA, that would have been passed on,' Galvin goes on, insisting that the money raised went, as it always said it did, to families of those affected by the Troubles. IRA figures involved in buying US weaponry, such as Gabriel Megahey or John 'The Yank' Crawley – who was later jailed for the foiled 1984 arms smuggling attempt on board the Marita Ann trawler – agree. If anything, they were told to stay away from Noraid because it would bring them to attention. Donaldson, killed later at a cottage in Donegal by people unknown, features frequently in conversation with Galvin: 'I complained about him. I could see even then that he was an informer. But I was told he had impeccable credentials.' Galvin had quickly suspected him: 'He told people I was a particular target. Then, he'd disappear for a few days and try to undermine anybody associated with me. Then, he was seen drinking with FBI people.' The first episode traces how 1920s anti-Treaty IRA men who quit, or fled, Ireland after the Civil War infused New York's Irish-American community with strong Republican feelings brought to life later with The Troubles. Remembering people such as Michael Flannery, who fought in 1916, John McDonagh says: 'Their hatred of the Free State knew no bounds. It was always, 'Free State', and 'bastards' wasn't long after it.' The second episode traces the impact of the 1981 hunger-strikes and Noraid-organised visits of Irish-Americans to Northern Ireland in the mid-1980s that radicalised opinion across Irish-America. Graphic for RTE documentary on Noraid It tracks, too, Sinn Féin's entry into the top strata of US politics, including White House visits – a process that was first pressed by Noraid calls for a Northern special envoy and a visa for then party leader Gerry Adams. It also maps the volleys of criticism from Garret FitzGerald, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and others on both side of the Atlantic and in the press, with Noraid supporters often labelled as misguided, deluded or simply supporting evil. 'We always got a fair shot from The Irish Times and [the newspaper's Washington Correspondent until 1992] Sean Cronin [who was the IRA's Chief of Staff during part of the 1950s Border Campaign],' Galvin says. Today, Noraid is a pale shadow of its former self. People still give it 'money in their wills', says Galvin, which is used for a few student bursaries and to help anyone 'being victimised today because of their involvement in the struggle'. Blacklisted for years, Galvin and others now get invited to official Irish Government events hosted by the Irish Consulate-General in Manhattan and get briefings from the Department of Foreign Affairs. [ Irish unification would cost €152m annually to give Northern Irish civil servants pay parity, report says Opens in new window ] If, however, relations with 'official' Ireland have warmed, ties with Sinn Féin have gone in the other direction – with Noraid pushed into the background and replaced by its New York-headquartered Friends of Sinn Féin. Galvin tries not to sound hurt but it is clear that he is: 'They started to run it down from the early 1990s. I was told that I was to stand back. 'We want to go in a different direction,' they said. 'They told me that I had an image as a supporter of the IRA, which I had, and that they wanted to go in a different direction,' he says. 'It was actually more difficult to step back than it had been to step forward. 'No individual is that important,' he says, with a shrug. Looking back, one senses regret in Galvin, not in his interest in Northern Ireland, his support for the IRA or his involvement in Noraid since the 1970s but, rather, at the cost it inflicted on his own life. He had joined Noraid hoping that he would not attract 'a lot of publicity' because he was then 'an assistant district attorney, a prosecutor, if you will'. He goes on: 'That was a path to a judgeship. That's what I wanted to do.' If Galvin is diplomatic, John McDonagh is not. For years, he interviewed Sinn Féin figures on his New York radio show when they were not allowed on the airwaves in the Republic of Ireland or the UK, along with editing The Irish People newspaper. One of the first signs of changing winds from Ireland came, he says, when Sinn Féin ordered an Irish pipe band in Philadelphia who had long worn berets, black ties and black jackets that they could not 'dress like that any more'. 'Sinn Féin came over, shut down everything. They traded in Irish Republicans in New York for Wall Street Republicans. They're the only Republicans that Sinn Féin want to hear about. They don't want to hear about Irish Republicans.' People who had 'carried the movement during good and hard times in New York were just jettisoned right off the bat', says McDonagh, who speaks with humour in his voice but the bitterness underneath is palpable. Neither is convinced that a United Ireland is coming soon or, perhaps, at all. Galvin wants a referendum but not one in 2030, while the British now just 'smile indulgently as if this is something that is never going to happen'. If it does, Galvin is not convinced that it would be fairly fought, believing that nationalist voters would be threatened with the loss of pension benefits and other losses if they vote for unity. Typically, McDonagh is blunter. [ 'People don't care that much': Frustrated sighs audible as students asked the 'British or Irish' question Opens in new window ] 'Listen, I've been listening to bulls**t in New York since the 1990s. Joe Cahill [the late IRA chief of staff] told me personally: 'We're getting the prisoners out and we're going to have a united Ireland in about five, 10 years.' He came and went. 'Then, Martin McGuinness said: 'We're going to have it in the next 10 years.' That went nowhere. Then, Gerry Adams said it would be in 2016, on the 100th anniversary of the Rising. That didn't happen. 'Now, we've Mary Lou coming out. Now, it's not a United Ireland because the tone has changed. It's a shared or an agreed Ireland. That's the semantics and the wording now. Everything's getting very fuzzy. 'The one thing I have found out is you can't defeat human nature. The people who get into power turn exactly into the people they just turfed out.' So, would he do it all again if he had the chance to roll the clock back 50 years? Just for a moment, he pauses, before recalling a conversation with senior IRA bomber and hunger-striker, the late Brendan 'Dark' Hughes. 'I asked him the same question as you have. 'Brendan, would you have got involved knowing how it ended?' He said, 'I wouldn't have got out of bed'. 'There are a lot of people who feel that way,' he goes on. Do Noraid people meet up now? 'At a freaking funeral home on Queens Boulevard, when they die. They're the only meetings you're going to get,' he replies, drily. Bar Ernie O'Malley's on Wednesday. Noraid: Irish America & the IRA begins Wednesday, July 9th, 9.35pm on RTÉ One
Belfast Telegraph
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Belfast Telegraph
Man who was face of IRA in US on escaping arrest from RUC, 'traitor' Denis Donaldson and using Playboy to further republican cause
Ahead of a new RTE documentary, the Belfast Telegraph looks at the role played by Irish Americans during the Troubles For almost two decades, he was the public face of the IRA in the US. New York lawyer Martin Galvin was regarded as so dangerous by the authorities here that he was prohibited from entering the UK. In August 1984 he defied the ban to appear at an anti-internment rally in west Belfast.
Belfast Telegraph
02-07-2025
- Politics
- Belfast Telegraph
‘We were Sinn Fein's friends in America, the people they could count on — until they wanted to change their image ... but I've no regrets'
Ahead of a new RTE documentary, the Belfast Telegraph looks at the role played by Irish Americans during the Troubles For almost two decades, he was the public face of the IRA in the US. New York lawyer Martin Galvin was regarded as so dangerous by the authorities here that he was prohibited from entering the UK. In August 1984 he defied the ban to appear at an anti-internment rally in west Belfast.
