John Crawley

John Crawley is an American former member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and former United States Marine. He is the author of The Yank: My Life as a former US Marine in the IRA, published in September 2022.

Early life Crawley was born in New York City to Irish immigrant parents. He spent his early years in the United States before moving to Ireland at the age of 14 in 1972.

US Marine Corps Shortly before his 18th birthday, Crawley returned to the United States to enlist in the US Marine Corps. He trained at the Advanced Infantry Training School, Camp Pendleton, California, in October 1975.

He served from 1975 to 1979, rising through the ranks to join a special forces reconnaissance unit known as Recon.

Provisional IRA After leaving the Marine Corps in 1979, Crawley returned to Ireland and made contact with the IRA. McGuinness, then an IRA commander, gave Crawley £9,000 and ordered him to travel to the United States to purchase weapons from gun stores, believing that Crawley's American accent would not attract suspicion. During the mission, the two men met regularly in the Botanic Gardens in Dublin. Crawley declined, falsely claiming he did not know how to make one. Crawley never trusted Bulger, writing: "I never trusted him and could never relax in his company. I was a soldier, but Whitey Bulger was a killer". John Grieve, who led Scotland Yard's anti-terror unit from the time of the 1996 Canary Wharf bombing, described Crawley and the other IRA bombers as "the A team", adding that Crawley, as an "ex-US Marine Corps demolition specialist, just epitomised the cunning, skills, experience, of the sort of people they were putting against us". Crawley has also stated that, while in custody, he declined a recruitment approach from the CIA.

Views Crawley has been openly critical of the IRA's leadership during the Troubles, arguing that the organisation was "very badly led and very badly organised".

He has stated he would not have joined the IRA had he known the outcome. Crawley praised Ryan as "both physically and morally courageous" and described him as "a proud unapologetic Irish republican".

The Yank (2022) In September 2022, Crawley published his memoir The Yank: My Life as a former US Marine in the IRA. The book covers his time in the US Marine Corps, his IRA service, his dealings with Whitey Bulger, the Marita Ann affair, his imprisonment, the London electricity plot, and his views on the peace process. Reviewer NJ McGarrigle describes it in the Irish Times as providing "an inside account of the realities of guerrilla warfare, with none of the romanticism attached".