Indeed they did, funding the IRA back in the olde country through an organization portrayed as “helping the old and neglected little old Irish ladies”.... NORAID. The US funding wing HQ’d in ... Boston.
The IRA and the Libyans were in the terrorist business big time, with the Libyans being the IRA’s greatest supporters, interconnecting along with Palestinians (Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Fatah, and good ole Yasser Arafat), in those days.
This has been a subject of amazement— these “Irish-Americans” who have no idea about the reality of Ireland and the UK, only what the Kennedy’s wanted to push for their own alignments (to include Joe Sr’s. embarrassing support of the Nazis— fact, and removed him from the Court of St. James).
Noraid still has a website, closely watched no doubt (to the extent the FBI doesn’t have a “kennedy” cabal- which it is suspected of, certainly).
Here’s a great article summarizing the lunacy that is/was the “Plastic Paddys” (so named Irish-Americans who have no clue):
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/noraid-ira-americas-plastic-paddys-alan-malcher-ma
The funding for NORAID ended after 911.
A lot of misery was caused by this charity.