Michael Flannery

Michael Flannery (7 January 1903 – 30 September 1994) was an Irish military officer and founder of the Irish Northern Aid Committee (NORAID), an Irish American membership organization that supported the Provisional IRA during the Troubles.

Flannery was a veteran of the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, and was also a member of the Cumann na Saoirse after the Republican Sinn Féin and Provisional Sinn Féin split in 1986.

Early life and role in the Irish revolutionary period Flannery was born in Cangort, near Brosna, right on the border of County Offaly and County Tipperary, on 7 January 1903.

In 1916, he joined the Irish Volunteers alongside his brother Peter, although he did not take part in the Easter Rising. However, he did participate in the Irish War of Independence. Following the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, he fought as part of the Anti-Treaty IRA until his capture by the National Army on 11 November 1922 in Roscrea, County Tipperary. He was imprisoned for nearly a year and a half in Dublin's Mountjoy Prison (C Wing). While there, he witnessed the execution of Anti-Treaty IRA leaders Richard Barrett, Joe McKelvey, Liam Mellows and Rory O'Connor from his cell window. Following Flannery going on a 28-day hunger strike, he was placed in the Curragh Prison Camp until 1 May 1924 when he was finally released, a full year after the end of the civil war.

Emigration to the United States

In February 1927, he emigrated to the United States, settling in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. In 1928, he married Margaret Mary Egan, an Irish-born research chemist from Tipperary, who had been educated at University College Dublin and University of Geneva.

Four months after the verdict of the arms trial, Flannery was named by the Ancient Order of Hibernians (the largest Irish Catholic fraternal organization in America) as Grand Marshall of the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City. His appointment was widely condemned by the Irish American majority, the press, and the U.S. government. Figures and institutions boycotted the parade that year, including the Archbishop of New York Terence Cooke, Irish American politicians such as "The Four Horsemen" (Ted Kennedy, Tip O’Neill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Hugh Carey) and members of the Friends of Ireland, and U.S. Army and high school bands.

In 1986, Flannery quietly resigned from NORAID following the decision by Sinn Féin to drop its abstentionist policy in the Republic of Ireland and to recognise Dáil Éireann as the legitimate governing body of Ireland. Michael Flannery joined with veteran Republicans, including Joe Stynes and George Harrison to form Cumann na Saoirse.

He opposed the Northern Ireland peace process, believing that Sinn Féin and the Provisionals had "sold out", and believed the removal of British troops from Northern Ireland was the only starting point upon which negotiations could begin.

He died on 30 September 1994, aged 91. Historians, scholars, and IRA veterans said the total amount raised in America for the Provisional cause had been exaggerated and only formed a small portion of IRA income, pointing out that nearly all of the IRA money came from legitimate and criminal activities within the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.