09-07-2025
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.
