Mick Clifford: Attempts to rewrite IRA history mock the many bereaved
A memoir from a former US marine and high-level IRA operative coincides with a ramping up in Sinn Féin of attempts to whitewash the past, writes Mick Clifford
John Crawley doesn’t dwell too much on the roughly 400 IRA victims who were Catholic out of a total of 1,700 murders attributed to “freedom fighters’ in his book ‘The Yank: My life as a former US Marine in the IRA’.
From a relatively young age, John Crawley wanted to kill for Ireland. Of course that’s not how he would put it.
He wanted to fight for Ireland, to die for Ireland if necessary, but in the late 20th century the organisation he joined was committed to killing anybody whose death might advance the cause of a united Ireland.
This is exclusive subscriber content. Already a subscriber? Sign in
