While the perspective of the IRA by many is of a young man with a cute accent who had suffered some horrible wrong the reality is that they are a communist group who are dedicated to spreading that philosophy through out the world by terror.
One of their trainee's blew up the free clinic where my mom worked. I doubt anyone in that neighborhood could have told you a single thing the IRA stood for or against. The closest thing we had to British were the teabags. But simply by being there we were providing people with hope, care and a chance of a better life. And that made them less likely to embrace communism. So we had to go.
To assume the IRA is about Ireland is the same as assuming that Hamas is about the West Bank. It is a label they slap on to try to sell their actions to the credulous. Bottom line is that their goal is the take over of the world by their respective philosophies.
I'm a "johnny come lately" to this particular discussion. May I ask why you were in South America?