> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > John > > IMHO it was Bin Laden that stopped the IRA in it's tracks .... > The IRA were funded (mostly) by donations from America (in the main part, from Boston). > The destruction of the Twin Towers showed Americans of the true horror of terrorism. The > result of the 9/11 atrocity was what caused the Americans to stop their funding of the IRA. > Suddenly, the Americans realised that Great Britain was a friend and an ally that they > needed and that the senseless struggle in Ireland was never going to be resolved by > bloodshed. > There is much in your analysis I think, though realistically the attrition of funding probably began even earlier than that. The fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 made things look possible in a way that they simply weren't before. And the IRA did have a certain amount of Eastern European socialist "baggage" that suddenly seemed awfully out of date.
Ian Cardinal aka Norman the Narrowboat
