Irish republicanism has always had an American dimension. From the Fenian Brotherhood of the nineteenth century onward, the millions who had left Ireland, together with their descendants, formed a reservoir of money, arms, publicity, and political pressure that no movement at home could match from its own resources. This section gathers the publications of that long tradition of Irish-American support, spanning almost a century of activity.
In the revolutionary years after 1916, organisations such as Clan na Gael and the Friends of Irish Freedom raised funds and lobbied opinion on a scale that helped sustain the independence struggle; Éamon de Valera’s American tour and bond drive drew on the same wellspring, and the executions of 1916 and the hunger strikes of 1920 resonated as powerfully in New York and Chicago as in Dublin. The cause did not fade with partition: figures such as Joseph McGarrity kept the republican network alive through the lean decades that followed, and papers like The Irish Republic carried its message to an American readership into the 1940s.
With the outbreak of the conflict in the North, that support revived on a large scale. The Irish Northern Aid Committee, known as Noraid, became its principal vehicle, raising money it described as relief for the families of republican prisoners, even as the British and Irish governments alleged that its funds reached the IRA; its newspaper, The Irish People, a long run of which survives here, reported the war to Irish America for two decades. The hunger strikes of 1981 brought the movement to a peak, and the years that followed were marked by campaigns against the extradition and deportation of republicans such as Joe Doherty and Roisin McAliskey, as well as by a steady round of commemoration that continues still.
The documents gathered in this section, among them newspapers, bulletins, leaflets, memorial cards, and pamphlets running from 1913 into the present century, record how the Irish question was kept alive across the Atlantic.
1913-1923
![]() Impressions of Sinn Fein in America (1919) | ![]() America’s Pledge (1918) | ![]() Friends of Irish Freedom Statement on deaths of Fitzgerald and MacSwiney (1920) |
1930-1950
1950-1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
![]() The Irish People (28 April 1973) (1) | ![]() The Irish People (17 March 1973) (1) | ![]() The Irish People (31 March 1973) (1) |
![]() Irish Publicity Bureau (13 April 1973) |
1974
1975
1976
![]() The Irish People (10 January 1976) (1) | ![]() The Common Enemy (1976) | ![]() Independence (1976) |
![]() The Irish People (11 September 1976) |
1977
![]() United Ireland Newsletter (July 1977) | ![]() United Ireland Newsletter (August 1977) | ![]() United Ireland Newsletter (November 1977) |
![]() United Ireland Newsletter (October 1977) |
1978
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
![]() The Irish People (10 November 1984) (1) | ![]() Bobby Sands Commemoration (1984) | ![]() The Irish American Voice (July 1984) |
1985
1986
![]() The Irish People (25 January 1986) (1) | ![]() The Irish People (05 April 1986) (1) | ![]() The Irish People (29 March 1986) (1) |
![]() The Last Post American Edition (1986) | ![]() The Irish People (08 November 1986) |
1987
1989
1990
1991
1996
1997
2003
2005
2008
2009
2011
Misc
(1) Donated by @irish_republican_archive
© Irish Republican Digital Archive. Historical documents are presented for educational and research purposes only. We do not endorse or promote any views expressed in the material. Some content may be politically or historically sensitive. [Read full disclaimer]
Subscribe to our free newsletter here.












































































































































