I met so many people who were Catholic and hated the IRA, they really hated them and understood they were just thugs telling the poorer project kids that they were freedom fighters.
I have photo’s of my time there which show a gas station blown up because the man who owned it gave some candy to soldiers, another shows an hospital ward blown up because they heard a soldier was at the hospital ..
Why some in America , mostly in Boston, NY city and Chicago think they’re some kind of freedom fighters is beyond me,
“Freedom fighter” organisations tend to gravitate towards thuggery, extortion and simple crime over the years. The mafia started out as a nationalist freedom fighting organisation. The IRA is no different. Neither incidentally is their opposition. The loyalist paramilitary organisations these days are apparently HEAVILY into drug-dealing.