Displaced allegiance: militant Irish republican activism in  the United States, 1923-39

This thesis examines the dynamics of the militant Irish republican movement in the United States from 1923 to 1939 through an analysis that incorporates the important role of Irish Republican Army (IRA) veterans in US-based republican activism during the period. For decades, the IRA veterans who emigrated to the US after the Irish Civil War have been largely omitted from historical accounts and consequently their collective and individual republican activism in the US has been overlooked. Data collected from a variety of archival repositories in Ireland, the US and the United Kingdom, has provided the material necessary to fully examine and comprehend the intricacies of the militant republican movement in the US and to also ascertain those IRA veterans who directly influenced and guided the US-based republican organisation, Clan na Gael. In addition, these sources have offered a deeper understanding of the emigration patterns of IRA veterans, their individual lives in American communities and their local and national republican activism. By including these IRA veterans into the transnational Irish-American historical record, a much deeper and focused understanding of the militant republican movement in the US during the inter-war years emerges and in the process, omitted and outdated perspectives can be revealed and expanded.