‘It was networking, all networking’: the Irish republican movement's survival in Cold War America

ABSTRACT

This article examines the Irish Republican movement's public fundraising arm on US soil, the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid), which operated as a legal organisation during Northern Ireland's ‘Troubles’ (1969–1998). In its efforts to fundraise for the families of republican prisoners, Noraid faced formidable impediments from above (government suppression) and below (the dissipation of Irish communities). How Noraid survived for the conflict's duration (and beyond) given these dual challenges poses a puzzle. This study finds that Noraid's longevity lies in its network-building strategies at the interpersonal and organisational levels in the 1970s and 1980s. The research points to the importance of disaggregating diaspora communities as they relate to armed conflict. It also draws attention to how government policies shape movement strategy; how social networks enable or deter resource mobilisation; and how leadership can build grassroots and organisational relationships to serve the rebel cause.

KEYWORDS:

• Diaspora
• civil war
• social movements
• networks
• Northern Ireland
• Irish Americans

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Margaret Gray for her generous feedback on drafts, along with the participants of the Politics and Protest Workshop at the CUNY Graduate Center, especially discussant Philip Johnson and organisers James Jasper and John Krinsky, for their comments on an earlier version of this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Brokerage is a network concept developed by Ronald Burt (2005). It refers to a bridge between otherwise disconnected entities.

2 The alters of an individual's social network are simply the persons with whom one (ego) has some relationship.

3 These were Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania. There was one additional interview conducted in the Republic of Ireland.

4 The 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic refers to Irish Americans in this way.

5 Radtke (2005) found this to be an important mechanism within the Tamil Canadian community.

6 The original text used INAC, short for Irish Northern Aid Committee.