Maria Farrell at Crooked Timber unleashes a blast at Gerry Adams and the IRA that is way too soft on Adams (but only because the English language does not have words sufficient to describe the evil and depravity of Gerry Adams). She also rips into Americans who are soft on the IRA, a group who deserve every bit of criticism they get, and then some.

But I think she damages her argument by offering up the race card.

Is it simply the case that only atrocities committed against Americans are vile acts of terrorism to be condemned to the end of time? Do atrocities against others have a time limit beyond which we should ruefully admit it’s time to put all of that behind us and pretend the un-met consequences don’t leak into and poison our political discourse? Or maybe it’s just that white, English-speaking people with the same surnames as us can’t really be terrorists.

I have no good explanation for the staggering romanticism about the IRA in the America, but race does not seem to explain it. (I am reminded of Mandela's attempt to say that US support for Israel and its war on Iraq were the result of American toward "black" Iraqis, as opposed to "white" Israelis.) I note that Irish intellectuals who will apologize for any fascist terrorism directed against the US, including al-Qaida, are quick to condemn the IRA, perhaps because it is too close to home.

The romanticism about the IRA seems to be confined to 'the usual suspects' of any ethnic group and a subset of Irish Americans in the more heavilly 'ethnic' Irish communities in New York and Boston, lots of whom fled from or were forced out of Northern Ireland during the Irish civil war, who will donate or collect money to do anthing to drive the British out, including some 'relatives' (feh!)who cut my branch of the family off after my father died because we are of 'impure blood (my mother's family is English and Welsh and Scots).'

Outside of the usual suspects, there was no support in the US for the Red Brigade in Italy, the Baader-Meinhof gang and the Red Army Faction in Germany, or ETA, the Basque terrorists in Spain.

Note that Maria says:

maybe it’s just that white, English-speaking people with the same surnames as us can’t really be terrorists.

So you get an F for English comprehension.

It's not so much the 'race card' as the 'idealistic English-speaking but not English rebel' card; is there really that much difference between the portrayal of Mel Gibson in The Patriot and someone like Gerry Adams? Americans like their revolutionaries to resemble their own revolutionary self-image (even though that self-image is itself a travesty and a fabrication). No wonder Adams fitted the mould, whereas non-English-speaking types in Europe did not.

Frankly, if one is to upbraid those who defend Hamas because of its fund-raising efforts for social programs, one should also aim a smack in the mouth at anyone who put money in the jar at their local 'Irish' pub in New England.

First, outside of New England, Irish-Americans, and literati (some of whom admittedly had outsize influence on policy), I don't think the IRA had the support of Americans.

But there is something to the shared language accusation. The literature was so Romantic, and, qua literature, compelling. The lovely language of Pomantic dreams blinds one to the content, if one is so inclined.

You all seem to neglect the straighforward concept that they believed in what the IRA/ Irish nationalists were doing.

By being more remote there was also the possibility to display more support for the actions without bing quiestioned by the West-british element of the Republic's population.

It is also the case that ex-pat communitites always magnify memories of the 'oul sod' to a more romantic ideal than it was (even if they were never there).

this is not exclusive to Irish communities though and your ire should be less focused...

It is also fair to say that most Americans would not have had any notion of what was really going on in Ireland during the latter quarter of the last century, so why would the IRA expect support from them? And anyway how would this manifest itself?