But let me guess, you know a bunch about the bastardman role we played during The Troubles, right? lol
** How America Backed The 1916 Easter Rising**
Though what’s now known as the Easter Rising was planned and carried out in Ireland, America played a pivotal role in what happened in the rebellion. The Proclamation that was read announcing “The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic” named just one country besides Ireland. The republican cause, the document acknowledged, received support from the “exiled children in America.”
John Devoy, exiled to the U.S. in 1871 for anti-British activity, raised an estimated $100,000 ($2.5 million currently) and surreptitiously sent the money back to Ireland to buy arms and other supplies. Though a naturalized American citizen and long-time resident of New York, Devoy always referred to the island of his birth as “home.”
Seven of the uprising leaders signed the Proclamation, and five of them lived or spent time in America. One signatory, Thomas J. Clarke, was even a naturalized American citizen.
New York and the Struggle for Irish Independence
Éamon de Valera, a third Irish leader with ties to the New York metropolitan area was actually born in Brooklyn, New York. His mother was an immigrant from Ireland and his father, who died while he was still a baby, was from Cuba. De Valera’s widowed mother brought him to Bruree, County Limerick, Ireland at the age of two and left him with her family before returning to the United States. After excelling in school de Valera taught mathematics in colleges in Dublin and became involved in the Gaelic League, a movement to promote the use of the Irish language.
In 1916, De Valera participated in the Easter Rising. He was arrested and sentenced to death. However his sentence was commuted because he was an American citizen. When he was released from prison in 1917 he was elected to the British Parliament where he campaigned for Irish independence. De Valera was president of Sinn Fein party from 1917 to 1926 and later become prime minister and president of an independent Ireland.
In 1919, de Valera traveled to the United States to request recognition of the Irish Republic and to solicit funds for the Irish revolutionary forces. He traveled from coast to coast speaking to packed audiences and at a Madison Square Garden rally raised $5 million ($125 million currently) for the Irish independence movement.
Weapons of the Irish Revolution, Part II, The War of Independence 1919-21
According to Richard Mulcahy – IRA Chief of Staff’s papers, some 289 handguns and 53 rifles along with nearly 25,000 rounds of ammunition were smuggled into Ireland from sympathisers in America.
Late in the war in the summer of 1921, Michael Collins managed to import a batch of Thompson submachine guns (several hundred) from sympathisers in America.