NORAID

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Noraid or the Irish Northern Aid Committee is an Irish American fundraising organization founded after the start of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1969. Its mission statement declares that:^[1]

Irish Northern Aid is an American based, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which supports by peaceful means a free and independent 32 county Ireland offering justice and equality for all its citizens in accordance with the Proclamation of the Irish Republic issued on Easter 1916.
Irish Northern Aid will highlight the colonial and sectarian nature of partition and British misrule as the primary reason for present conflict.
Irish Northern Aid supports Irish political prisoners and their dependents and also the surviving family members of those killed as a result of political violence.
Additionally, Irish Northern Aid provides financial support to registered charities who are engaged in supporting those who have been affected most by the British occupation of the 6 counties of Northeast Ireland.

The British, Irish and U.S. governments accused Noraid of being a front for the Provisional Irish Republican Army, an accusation that has always been denied by Noraid. Noraid's former leader, Martin Galvin, was banned from the United Kingdom in the 1980s.^[2]

NORAID are widely believed^[specify] to have been involved in fundraising for Provisional IRA arms importation from North America since the early 1970s.^[3]^[4][1][2]

In May 1981, the U.S. Department of Justice won a court case forcing Noraid to register the Provisional Irish Republican Army as its "foreign principal", under the Foreign Agents Registration Act 1938. A compromise was reached which allowed Noraid to include a written disclaimer against the court ruling stating the document had been signed under force and that Noraid maintained that the IRA was not its "foreign principal". Federal attorneys agreed to this, and Noraid resumed filing its financial returns in July 1984.^{[citation needed]}

The organization's former leader, Martin Galvin, is now a supporter of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement, an organization which rejects the Northern Ireland peace process and has been described as the political wing of the Real IRA. The 32 County Sovereignty Movement and the Real IRA are illegal organisations in the Republic of Ireland and are both designated as terrorist organisations in the United Kingdom and the United States.