Major IRA attack on the USA?

The IRA could have tried to take out Ian Paisley on US soil whenever he came to visit Bob Jones University...and after 1980, that would have led to a US right-wing backlash against the IRA...

As for a far previous PoD...have James Connoly lead a successful Irish Revolution.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Chyoobius. :p

I reckon I'm more 'Irish' than most of that lot.

Some of that lot still speaks Gaelic, unlike most of the European lot.

What if the IRA assassinated Fred Phelps? Would all those idealize the IRA as freedom fighters suddenly turn on them as murderers?

People would cheer for them and dance in the streets with IRA banners across the country; the UK is screwed, this is Fred Phelps you're talking about, the abusive asshole who was disbarred over physical threats to a court journalist who didn't fake evidence for him.
 
lets say close Reagan Thatcher links leads to the CIA helping the Brits bust a number of IRA big wigs buying arms from whoever, or the passing of anti-terror money laws hit Irish money from the US.

here's a thought, what if a loony tries to kill Reagan "for the Irish Republic" as a member of the IRA, clearly the IRA will say they have nothing to do with it, but that said that about about half the things they did.

The "lone wolf" theory seems to make the most sense to me, where privately a lot of people in government would know the guy was a loon but decide to take the opportunity to take out the IRA anyway.
 
The IRA could have tried to take out Ian Paisley on US soil whenever he came to visit Bob Jones University...and after 1980, that would have led to a US right-wing backlash against the IRA...

That strikes me as a lot more realistic than the IRA getting offended at some American political figure and traveling to the U.S. to kill him.

And if their attempt on Paisley is something with a lot of "collateral damage" like a bomb, then that means American deaths and injuries, which will PO people.
 
People would cheer for them and dance in the streets with IRA banners across the country; the UK is screwed, this is Fred Phelps you're talking about, the abusive asshole who was disbarred over physical threats to a court journalist who didn't fake evidence for him.

I wasn't aware of that--I knew the more well-known stuff, like protesting at funerals, generally being a troll, and his son claiming he abused everybody.
 
Fenians in the 1860s tried to provoke a war between Canada and The USA and printed fake US curency around 1867. They also bombed underground trains in London during the 19th century using dynamite!
 
based off this:




given their 1980s-90s links to Libya is it all that out their they might try something against the US? not anything so big at that, but what would happen if an IRA attack happened in the USA some time between the late 1980s and 2000?

Totally ASB and would never happen!
 
Totally ASB and would never happen!

there is a difference between very unlike and ASB.

any ways, here's a thought, its 1998, the Good Friday Agreement has been signed and the Real IRA is out for blood, they send an Assassin to Kill Ted Kennedy for his roll in the peace, I'd agree with most people that the Provos aren't dumb enough to try anything, but the R-IRA or C-IRA are more mad bombers than anything else
 
Fenians in the 1860s tried to provoke a war between Canada and The USA and printed fake US curency around 1867. They also bombed underground trains in London during the 19th century using dynamite!

Apparently because they thought the Americans would win. Think of it like the Hugenouts in the 1632 series. I cant wait til its exposed that the government was hushing that up.
 
In the vein of this thread (people who know about Sikh terrorism please check it out):

Never mind about the U.S., what about IRA attacks in Commonwealth nations such as Canada or even Australia?
 
Never mind about the U.S., what about IRA attacks in Commonwealth nations such as Canada or even Australia?

I believe the IRA took out hits on people that went to Canada for their safety, its easy to believe that the IRA would use a car bomb to take out an informer that MI6 moved to Canada for their safety.
 
Some of that lot still speaks Gaelic, unlike most of the European lot.

A) I'm a (Scots) Gaelic-learner myself who as we know will not shut up about the Highland Clearances, so I feel I have a Sino-Nixonian right to say that fluency was a Celtic language has bugger all to do with whether you belong to the Celtic nations or not. Irishness is a state of mind, my grannie said, and parts of Ireland have spoken some sort of English since Norman times, or Scots since about the time Boston was being founded.

B) Taken as a proportion of the populations claiming Irishness, I doubt the number of Americans fluent in Gaelic is greater than the number of Irish. This statement is, frankly, outright misleading: most Irish don't speak Irish, and, ah, most 'Irish' don't speak Irish either. Persons who speak Irish are unlike the majority of persons, who don't speak Irish? Well, yes...

Pardon me for saying so - I know I'm being terribly presumptive - but between this, your making the same argument for Scotland (which is even less valid, you hear it from a Lothian man with Orcadian roots), and the idea that "English nationalists" would for some reason oppose Scottish independence when obviously teh reverse is true I wonder whether you don't have something of a bone to pick with Saxon civilisation. :p;)
 
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Most Irish don't speak Gaelic fluently but pretty much all of them under a certain age know a few token bits and pieces at least. Its a mandatory subject at school. My little 6 year old cousin always brings home homework to practice his gaelic numbers, colours, etc...
Quite a surprisingly large number of young English speaking Irish speak Irish quite well these days; to the level where when they want a private chat without the English understanding they can drop into it ala the Welsh.
I've never heard of any significant numbers of Irish-Americans speaking Gaelic though, at least beyond the occasional (usually misused) word.
 
The author Tom Clancy brought up this idea in one of his adventure novels. A fictitious IRA offshoot organization-The Ulster Liberation Army (ULA):confused:-chooses to strike at targets in the USA simply to show they are crazier (more radical, more "revolutionary" than the Provos, INLA, or anybody else).

Clancy does a good job through the words of his characters to describe how the IRA could never take being persona non grata in Boston. It was not the money. Clancy estimated the IRA only cleared about one third of a million dollars per year from Nor-Aid. Rather, it was "like crawling back into the womb for these guys..it's all the beers people buy for them...it's telling them they are the good guys...it's the boosting effects it has on their morale, not their finances, that they want and need."
 

King Thomas

Banned
Attacking the USA would be an idiotic thing for the IRA to do-it would be like me attacking my best friend.They would lose money and support and gain nothing.
 

celt

Banned
The only thing more insane would be setting bombs off in the Republic of Ireland.:eek:

Well they did plenty of armed robberys and other criminal activties in the south,I don't think its ASB for them to start attacking the Garda flat out.
 
The only thing more insane would be setting bombs off in the Republic of Ireland.:eek:

Actually the IRA did conduct a terrorist campaign against the Free State in the earlier half of the century, seeing the Twenty-six County Entity as no more legitimate than the Six County Entity. No less a person than De Valera actually co-operated with British intelligence against them.
 
Most Irish don't speak Gaelic fluently but pretty much all of them under a certain age know a few token bits and pieces at least. Its a mandatory subject at school. My little 6 year old cousin always brings home homework to practice his gaelic numbers, colours, etc...
Quite a surprisingly large number of young English speaking Irish speak Irish quite well these days; to the level where when they want a private chat without the English understanding they can drop into it ala the Welsh.
I've never heard of any significant numbers of Irish-Americans speaking Gaelic though, at least beyond the occasional (usually misused) word.

I understand there are a couple of Irish-speaking communities dotted here and there in America and Canada, but you're quite right. Why anyone would argue that 'Irish'-Americans are actually Hiberniores Hibernis ipsis is beyond me.
 
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