Robert Collins's Noraid and the Northern Ireland Troubles, 1970–1994 provides an important contribution to the literature on the Northern Ireland conflict, and particularly the American dimension to this. More recently, and quite understandably, research has focused on the US role in the region's peace process. However, before Bill Clinton's famous visit in 1995, or even the ceasefires of 1994, the influence of theUS in Northern Ireland was seen by unionists in particular as largely malign. This was because of the crucial part played by Irish-Americans in supporting and helping to finance more than twenty-five years of violence by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Collins briefly explains the reasons why sections of the Irish diaspora in the US demonstrated such a militant and Anglophobic nationalism. Most significant was the Great Irish Famine of the mid-nineteenth century, which saw at least a million desperate and starving people leave the country, and at least a million more die. Amongst the many emigrants who landed on American shores, there was a sense that they had been forced from Ireland by British misgovernment and cruelty in its hopelessly inadequate response to the Famine. This explains the huge support, particularly financial, that Irish America provided for Ireland's struggle for independence in the ensuing decades. It also explains why, when conflict broke out in Northern Ireland in 1968, the US diaspora again rallied to the cause of the Catholic and nationalist minority. Initially, Irish-Americans provided support for the civil rights movement which sought to end the discrimination endured by Catholics. But as state repression of this mobilization increased, and particularly after British paratroopers fired upon a civil rights protest in Derry in January 1972, killing fourteen people, reactions from the Catholic community also became increasingly violent. The IRA was the primary manifestation of this, and Noraid (a contraction of “Northern Aid”) was the key organization through which activists in the US aided the IRA.

Collins effectively explains how Noraid came to dominate Irish-American responses to the early Northern Ireland conflict, which initially produced a range of support groups. Radical leftists had already been mobilized by the African-American civil rights movement and Vietnam protests, so naturally aligned with the younger and more socialist activists in Northern Ireland. But most of the new groups reflected the mainstream of Irish America in articulating a more straightforward nationalism, both staunchly Irish and uncritically American. Alternatively, support came from devout and conservative Irish Catholics, acting to support persecuted co-religionists as well as co-ethnics. They were persuaded by the claims of the Noraid leadership that all donations which it received would be used to support the families of those imprisoned in Northern Ireland—many without due legal process. However, Noraid also drew in more radical activists who sensed that this was not the only way that funds were being used, but for whom attacks on British soldiers were a way of hitting back, and a form of revolution—nationalist if not socialist.

Collins shows that the backbone of Noraid was not, as the British commentators preferred to suggest, fourth or fifth generation immigrants who had never been to Ireland. Indeed, the founding members and the most active personnel in the early years were mainly Irish-born. Key leaders were veterans of the Irish War of Independence a half century earlier. Others were recent arrivals, many from Northern Ireland, and thus brought firsthand experience of discrimination there. However, this coterie proved influential amongst the wider diaspora.

Collins also examines groups aligned to Noraid, which later distanced themselves from the organization. The Irish National Caucus and Congressional Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs were, as the latter's name suggests, more focused on influencing opinion on Capitol Hill, but still served the interests of Irish republicans in the US. In detailing the activities of these two lobbies, Collins's narrative strays a little. Both were separate from Noraid, the stated focus of the book, and though it is important to explain the role of allied actors in order to understand the wider development or Irish lobbying in the US, the same should be said for mainstream figures like Thomas “Tip” O'Neill and Ted Kennedy. They worked with the Irish and even British government to combat Noraid support by openly and explicitly condemning the IRA—an unpopular move amongst all many of their constituents. Kennedy and O'Neill also formed the Friends of Ireland group to counter the influence of the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee in Washington. Collins barely mentions these moderate activists, and whilst the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee certainly instigated the effort that led the US State Department to suspend the sale of weapons to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in 1979, he ignores the role of O'Neill in this. O'Neill was then House Speaker, so his support was crucial to the move, but only came after successive inquires showed the RUC to be abusing prisoners, and the repeated failure of the British government to advance a political settlement in Northern Ireland. Understanding the efforts of individuals like O'Neill and Kennedy is vital to explain why Irish-Americans turned away from Noraid, and why the Friends of Ireland had more real influence on the White House than the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee.

There are also weaknesses in Collins's later chapters. He details the MacBride Principles campaign for fair employment in Northern Ireland that gripped Irish America from the 1980s, but could say far more about how this led many radical activists, even from Noraid, toward a more political and reformist approach. Similarly, the Clinton era and conclusion of the book are covered in twelve pages. This leaves huge questions regarding the demise of Noraid as almost all of Irish America united behind the peace process. Just before the IRA ceasefire of 1994, one of the organization's founders, who had first visted the US in 1970 to help establish Noraid, was given a visa by Clinton to come and reassure its American supporters that Irish reunification remained the objective. This showed the concern of the republican leadership over splits in its US support base, just as it was wary of divisions at home. But Collins says surprisingly little regarding any debate within Noraid on republicans' shift to peaceful politics.

This is a good book, particularly strong on Noraid's early years. And the title makes clear that the survey ends in 1994, but it could have been stronger on developments within Noraid leading up to the IRA ceasefire, and it would have been fascinating to learn how the organisation was quietly edged offstage by Sinn Féin in the years that followed.