The Philadelphia gun-runners who supplied the IRA

Summary

History Extra Podcast: The Philadelphia Gun-Runners Who Supplied the IRA Release Date: March 26, 2025

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Introduction

In this gripping episode of the History Extra Podcast, hosted by Ellie Cawthorn, reporter and author Ali Watkins delves into the clandestine operations of the Philadelphia gun-runners who supplied the Irish Republican Army (IRA) during the height of the Troubles in the 1970s. Drawing from her extensive research and her book, "The Next One is for You," Watkins uncovers the intricate network and far-reaching consequences of these arms smuggling activities.

The Troubles: Context and Background

[02:36] Ali Watkins:
"Before you talk about the mid-70s, you have to talk about the late 60s in Northern Ireland post partition, where the six counties have been separated from the independent republic. There's a buildup of oppression of Irish Catholic residents in the North."

Watkins provides a comprehensive overview of the sociopolitical landscape in Northern Ireland leading up to the 1970s. The partition of Ireland created significant tensions, particularly among the Irish Catholic population in cities like Belfast and Derry, who faced systemic oppression and inequality. Civil rights protests mirrored those in America, igniting revolutionary sentiments that eventually escalated into widespread violence.

Philadelphia: A Hotbed for IRA Support

[06:54] Ali Watkins:
"Philadelphia was actually one of the highest concentrations of émigrés from Northern Ireland and from counties like Derry, Armagh, and Tyrone because of historic shipping routes."

Philadelphia emerged as a pivotal center for IRA support in the United States. Unlike other Irish American hubs such as Boston or New York, Philadelphia's unique immigration patterns resulted in a concentrated diaspora from specific Northern Irish counties. This tight-knit community became fertile ground for radical organizations like Clann na Gael to thrive.

Clann na Gael: The Arsenal of Support

[08:26] Ali Watkins:
"Clann na Gael grew out of the Fenian movement and evolved into this auxiliary support for what eventually becomes the IRA, maintaining strong presences in cities like Philadelphia."

Clann na Gael, an organization with roots in the late 19th-century Fenian movement, played a crucial role in supporting the IRA. Initially established in New York, it later centralized in Philadelphia, fostering a network dedicated to armed resistance against British rule in Northern Ireland. This group served as the backbone for the logistical operations that would supply the IRA with essential weaponry.

Vince Conlon and the Philadelphia Five

[11:14] Ali Watkins:
"Vince Conlon joined the Republican movement during the 1950s border campaign and eventually fled to Philadelphia in 1960, maintaining his commitment to a reunited Ireland."

Vince Conlon, a central figure in this narrative, epitomizes the dedication of Irish American Republicans. After participating in the IRA's border campaign, Conlon relocated to Philadelphia, where he became instrumental in organizing the smuggling of arms to the IRA. His relentless pursuit of Irish unity underscores the personal motivations driving these covert operations.

The Art of Smuggling: Ingenuity and Risks

[15:47] Ali Watkins:
"They used plumbing supplies, sofas, cars, and household goods to hide the guns, adopting a catch-as-catch-can strategy to evade detection."

The smuggling operations employed by the Philadelphia crew were both innovative and daring. Utilizing everyday items to conceal weapons, they navigated the challenges of international transport with a blend of ingenuity and sheer determination. Their methods ranged from hiding Armalite rifles in furniture to exploiting connections within Irish Airlines, demonstrating a relentless commitment to arming the IRA.

Impact of Armalite Rifles on the Conflict

[17:49] Ali Watkins:
"The introduction of Armalites changed the game in Northern Ireland, elevating the IRA from a struggling force to a formidable adversary against the British army."

The procurement of Armalite rifles marked a turning point in the Troubles. These modern, high-velocity firearms significantly enhanced the IRA's combat capabilities, allowing them to inflict greater damage and sustain prolonged engagements against British forces. This escalation intensified the conflict, leading to more severe confrontations and casualties.

US Law Enforcement's Awareness and Response

[19:10] Ali Watkins:
"The FBI and ATF had been monitoring Clann na Gael for decades, but it wasn't until the early 70s that they took substantial action due to pressure from British and Unionist authorities."

Despite the evident scale of arms smuggling, U.S. law enforcement agencies were initially hesitant to intervene decisively. Balancing diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom and managing the significant Irish American voting bloc, agencies like the FBI maintained a watchful yet restrained stance. It wasn't until international pressure mounted that more robust measures were enacted, leading to arrests and prosecutions of key figures involved in the gun-running operations.

Tracing the Guns: Challenges and Consequences

[20:39] Ali Watkins:
"Tracing the guns into Northern Ireland was almost impossible, with many serial numbers inaccessible and connections to specific incidents obscured."

Investigating the precise pathways and ultimate destinations of the smuggled weapons proved exceptionally challenging. Watkins recounts her efforts to link specific firearms to incidents in Northern Ireland, only succeeding in a few cases due to stringent secrecy and bureaucratic obstacles. This difficulty highlights the broader complexities of tracking illicit arms flows in conflict zones.

Perspectives on Irish American Involvement

[23:20] Ali Watkins:
"Brendan Hughes, a leading IRA figure, felt that the NORAID people had no understanding of what the war was like in Belfast. However, Irish America often romanticizes a conflict they never directly experienced."

The episode explores the nuanced perceptions between Irish Americans and their counterparts in Northern Ireland. While organizations like NORAID provided crucial support, figures like Brendan Hughes criticized the superficial understanding of the conflict among American supporters. Watkins reflects on the generational and cultural gaps that can distort the perception and motivations behind such support.

The Philadelphia Five Court Case and Aftermath

[24:55] Ali Watkins:
"By 1975, three members of the Philadelphia Five were caught, two convicted, and two evaded capture, effectively dismantling the smuggling cell."

The culmination of increased law enforcement scrutiny led to significant arrests within the Philadelphia smuggling network. The court cases of the Philadelphia Five underscored the legal repercussions of their actions, although the penalties appeared lenient compared to the gravity of their offenses. The decline of this cell prompted the IRA to seek alternative sources for arms, notably Libya, altering the landscape of arms supply dynamics.

The Legacy and Modern Reflections

[26:26] Ali Watkins:
"A new generation in Northern Ireland is approaching the conflict's history with hope and a desire for resolution, leading to renewed interest in stories like mine."

Watkins posits that contemporary explorations of the Troubles are driven by a younger generation's quest to understand and reconcile with their history. As societal wounds gradually heal, there is a burgeoning interest in uncovering and reflecting on the multifaceted narratives that shaped the conflict. This renewed focus is evident in the proliferation of books, films, and TV shows that seek to present a balanced and introspective view of the past.

Conclusion

Ali Watkins' exploration of the Philadelphia gun-runners reveals a complex interplay of ideology, community, and covert operations that significantly influenced the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, this episode sheds light on a lesser-known facet of the conflict, emphasizing the profound ripple effects of transatlantic support in protracted civil strife. As history continues to be reassessed, such narratives are crucial in understanding the enduring impacts of past actions on present realities.

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Recommended Listening:
To delve deeper into this riveting history, tune into this episode of the History Extra Podcast and explore Ali Watkins' insightful book, "The Next One is for You."

Transcript

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[Ellie Cawthorn]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History magazine. In the 1970s, Northern Ireland was divided by the Troubles, but the conflict stretched far beyond its city's streets. All the way across the Atlantic, a group of Philadelphia gunrunners were keeping the IRA supplied by smuggling hundreds of Armalite guns and other weapons. Reporter Ali Watkins recovers this story in her book the Next One Is for your. And I spoke to her to find out more. So your new book, the Next One is for your looks at how a group of Philadelphia gun runners known as the Philadelphia Five kept the IRA supplied with arms at the height of the Troubles. So before we go any further, Ali, can you give us some context? What was the situation in Northern Ireland and in Belfast in particular in the mid-1970s?

[Ali Watkins]

So when we're talking about this period leading into this moment, when you see Irish American involvement in the Troubles, you're really talking about centuries worth of history that's sort of periodically building up. But you know, before you talk about the mid-70s, you kind have to talk about the late 60s in Northern Ireland post partition, where, you know, the six counties have been separated from the independent republic. And you've seen this kind of buildup of oppression of Irish Catholic residents in the North. There's a lot of discontent, there's a lot of inequality, a lot of inequitable representation happening, particularly in cities like Belfast, like Derry. And as we inch toward the late 60s, an interesting thing starts happening in cities like Belfast and Derry, which kind of aligns with civil rights protests that are happening in America. And we start to see the beginning whiffs of real revolutionary activity in the Irish Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. We start to see that in civil rights protests in Derry and in Belfast, and we start seeing this fuse start to light in these cities, and we start to see these forces clash against each other. We start to see Irish Catholic residents rebel against Unionist rule, rebel against Unionist suppression. And as we inch into the 1970s, that tension has started to spool into violence. And, you know, you've seen Irish America being kind of interested in his own pockets in the lead up to that. But when we hit 1970 and we start to see these things really explode. British troops on the streets of Belfast and Derry, Irish America suddenly starts paying attention, and you start to see this emergence of a new armed resistance within the Irish Catholic community, which becomes the Provisional ira. And you see Irish American pay a lot more attention to that movement.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

We were talking before we started this recording about how the Troubles is a hugely sensitive topic. I mean, many of the people involved are still alive. The emotions from that time still run very deep. What were some of the challenges of recovering a story like this as a journalist?

[Ali Watkins]

Well, as you said, you know, it's one of the most complicated conflicts, and it's a very contemporary conflict. You know, we're not talking about something that happened 400 years ago ago, 500 years ago. This is something that is still very much a living history and very much still an unreconciled, unresolved history in a lot of ways within a lot of communities. And I think there were a lot of challenges here. Actually, one of the first interviews I did for this book, I was just kind of doing my broader questions to experts. Explain the Troubles, explain the Irish conflict, whatever. And someone said, well, you can't talk about anything in Northern Ireland without going back to 1169. And I was like, okay, well, you know, it was a good primer, because you really can't talk about anything in this conflict without talking about something that happened 60, 70, 500 years ago from seven different angles. And I think the most important thing as a journalist, as a reporter, as a storyteller in these kinds of reporting missions is being very aware of what you don't know or what you can't say just from your own knowledge and being open to talking to people on all sides of it. But I think if you go in with good faith as a reporter, there's a way to do it. I'd also like to say I think there should always be a hyper awareness as an American writing about this, you know, which I think comes with pros and cons. I come from an Irish American background, but that comes with its own emerald colored glasses on things, you know, so there's benefit in some ways to that distance when you're reporting on this, but there's also an inherent. I will never be able to understand certain things about this. And there's, you know, it's a really challenging place to be, you know, But I think if you go in with good faith and an open mind, you can find a way to tell these stories.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And I do think that the American connection to this story, that dimension of the Troubles, is probably lesser known, at least here in the uk. So I wonder if we can head over the Atlantic now. What were the main hotspots for IRA support in the us?

[Ali Watkins]

Yeah, this is a really interesting background to Irish America that I really only learned through reporting this. When you're talking about chain migration to the States and when you're thinking about Irish America in the States, you think of Boston and you think of Chicago with dyeing the river green and New York and specifically the South Bronx, Philadelphia, to an extent, San Francisco has a big diaspora. But there's something even more specific about those typical Irish American cities, which is that just by the nature of how immigration and emigration worked from Ireland, very specific shipping routes took people from very specific counties into certain cities. So you had, you know, the Boston diaspora, you know, it was widespread, but there would be certain specific counties that represented just because, you know, people knew friends or new family who would come. And what was really interesting about Philadelphia is that Philadelphia was actually one of the highest concentrations of emigres from Northern Ireland and from counties like Derry, Armagh and Tyrone because of historic shipping routes. So when you're talking about these kind of hotbeds or more radical areas of Irish American support, you've got pockets of Boston, you've certainly got pockets of New York. But Philadelphia kind of maintained this very cloistered diaspora by virtue of the fact that so many of them came from the North.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

If we focus in then on that Philadelphia diaspora, an operation that's key to this whole story is called Clann na Gael. So can you explain what they were and how they operated?

[Ali Watkins]

Sure. So Clannegaale grew out of the Fenian movement, which was the late 1800s, and grew out of a group of Irish Republican supporters in New York. And it sort of took on this kind of secret society feel. You know, there's a lot of Irish American groups that are popping up around this time. It's obviously when you start to see a huge wave of Irish emigration to the States. It's post famine, it's during the War of Independence. But Clan Niguel kind of stood apart as this fairly radical group that was not widely available to Irish emigres. It was kind of purely reserved for people who were Republican who supported armed resistance against British occupation. And it kind of evolves into this auxiliary support for what eventually becomes the ira. And it maintains really strong presences in some of these cities that we mentioned, where you have these very cloistered radical pockets of the diaspora. Philadelphia, parts of New York, Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia eventually. Although the Glenn Nigel began in New York, it eventually moves down to Philly as its main headquarters. And you start to see it really develop as a Philadelphia organization after the War of independence in the 20s and 30s.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And the members of Clanna Gael, were they people that had been involved in the IRA or in revolutionary action in Ireland and then had to leave because it got too hot for them in Ireland, or how did it attract members?

[Ali Watkins]

Yeah, the vast majority of people who were involved in Clann Ngael in these early years were veterans of the armed Republican movement, whether that was from the 1920s, whether that was from earlier, and when you think about why some of these pockets of the Irish American diaspora remained so radical and so supportive of Irish Republican causes, you know, if you left Ireland because of your republican beliefs, you know that doesn't go away when you come to America. To the contrary, it probably solidifies. So a lot of the people who started this more contemporary iteration of Clan de Gael had fled Ireland or Northern Ireland because they were wanted, because they still supported a united Ireland after partition, because they were still supporting the IRA or were being sought by Irish authorities, British authorities, whatever. So the Irish Republicans who flee Ireland and form the backbone of clan niguel post 1920s are really probably some of the most radical Republicans around, you know, and they start kind of taking root in cities like Philadelphia.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And one of the key members in Philadelphia is a guy called Vince Conlon, who's a central figure in this story, can you tell us about him?

[Ali Watkins]

Yeah, Vince has a really interesting story, but also one that is quite traditional for men of that time who kind of shared his beliefs. Vince Conlan joined the Republican movement during the 1950s during the border campaign, which was post partition of Northern Ireland. The IRA is kind of in a very weakened state. There's sort of breaths of it that exist. And Vince Conlon joins the IRA in the midst of this eventually doomed armed campaign along the Northern Irish border. He winds up fleeing to Philadelphia in 1960. He winds up settling with his family over there. His belief system kind of follows this trend, you know, of that he's always been a true believer in the idea of a reunited Ireland. And he carries those beliefs with him when he goes back to the States. So much so that he maintains involvement even in the late 60s in this sort of quiet Clan Niguel network that is still working to take guns over to the North.

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[Ellie Cawthorn]

A bit about some of these operations? Why did the idea emerge that supplying guns was perhaps the most useful thing that Clan Niguel could do for the ira?

[Ali Watkins]

So you have people like Vince Conlon in Philadelphia in the 60s and at the time, it's a quiet moment for Irish America. It's kind of a quiet moment for the ira. The border campaign is on its last legs. You have this collection of people that Vince Conlon works with through Clan Niguel. You have a few people up in New York, you have a few people in Chicago, and it's sort of just this quiet effort to keep sending some support, AKA guns, over into Northern Ireland for whatever breaths of the IRA still exist. So as we are inching up to the 1970s and we start to see tensions in Northern Ireland really heat up, we start to see something happen in the Republican movement in Northern Ireland too, which is that the Provisional IRA starts to form, which is this iteration of the IRA that then becomes the main vehicle of militant resistance for the Irish Republican Movement. And the Provost, as they become known, are kind of filled with a younger group of IRA fighters and don't necessarily have the network and the guns that a lot of these older IRA veterans have. So you have this emergence of kind of a new era of armed conflict in the Irish Republican movement in Northern Ireland. At the same time, you have a group of Irish Americans saying, hey, we're still really radical and really want to help. And the official older guys are not really doing what we want to do. How can we help you guys out? And there's a pretty critical meeting in 1969 where this younger, more radical provisional delegation actually sends someone over to Philadelphia to Clannigael and says, hey, there seems to be an alignment of these interests. Can you guys help?

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So how do Vince Conlon and his team begin raising funds to get these guns and then smuggling them over?

[Ali Watkins]

I mean, this is the part of the story that is almost cinematic in some ways. I mean, what's so mind boggling about how Vince Conlan and this group was able to smuggle so many of these guns is that they were actually quite grassroots and purposefully sloppy about it because it was so much harder to track. You know, once they kind of accept this mission from the Provisional ira, they sort of take off immediately, partly because it's a lot easier to buy guns in America, as we all know. And when you're talking about smuggling these guns over, one of the real benefits to Irish Americans who were interested in sneaking things out of the country is that by this point in America, the Irish diaspora had kind of spread out into a lot of unions. You had them operating some of the longshoremen's union which runs the docks. You have them operating a lot of the construction unions, a lot of the plumbers unions in New York and Philadelphia, you know, and this creates an opportunity to sort of smuggle guns in ways with friendly faces or people who might look the other way. So you had, you know, guns being smuggled in, plumbing supplies, Guns being smuggled, packed into couches, into cars, into household supplies, you know, boxes being scratched off, itineraries at the docks. For a little bit. They had a connection at Irish Airlines where they could kind of quietly smuggle some things over. That way they could put guns in suitcases that went on the qe, the Queen Elizabeth ocean liner. It was this very kind of catch as catch can strategy that was a bunch of suburban dads basically buying as many guns as they could and getting them over however possible.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So these Clan Nigel guns that were being smuggled over, what kind of weaponry are we talking about here? And did the type of guns that they were sending over shape the nature of the conflict at all?

[Ali Watkins]

This is what's so significant about this Philadelphia cell. Right? Cause the idea that Irish America sent guns over to the IRA in Northern Ireland is something that I think is kind of widely accepted, at least among Irish America, and I think to some degree over here. But what was so unique and consequential to the conflict specifically about this Philadelphia cell, is that it's the first time we see Armalites in Northern Ireland. But if you kind of look at the timeline, I believe, and a lot of literature suggests that this Philadelphia cell was actually the first introduction by the IRA to the Armalite. And the Armalite changes the state of the game in Northern Ireland. You're not dealing with these kind of antiquated machine guns from the early 1900s. This is a contemporary gun. It's built for urban warfare. It shoots very fast, high velocity. There's a lot of rounds you can get off. And it very quickly elevates the IRA and the provost, specifically from this kind of limping fighting force with rusty guns to out of nowhere, they have this huge influx of modern weaponry that really puts British army on its back heels.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And how concerned was the US law enforcement about what was going on? How aware even were they were the FBI onto these gun runners?

[Ali Watkins]

This is where the policy questions get really complicated. Right? Because America has always, particularly as the Troubles were kicking off, kind of really didn't want Northern Ireland to be their problem. And they're stuck between one of their most critical allies in Great Britain and one of their largest, most powerful voting blocs in Irish America. So as far as the States is concerned, they would really like to just sort of look the other way and not engage with this. But that is. That's not a tenable position. By the time we're in 1972, 1973, and we see how many American Armalites are Turning up on the streets of Belfast and Derry. You know, the FBI and later the atf, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and now Explosives. You know, they had kept an eye on the Irish diaspora for decades, really. You know, they had paid attention to Clannigale as early as the 1950s, probably before that. But it was less for an active investigative purpose than. So they could say, oh, yeah, sure, we're keeping an eye on them, like they're fine. You know, that changes very quickly in the 70s, though, right? They are very quickly pushed by the British and Unionists, Northern Irish officials, to get this under control because it's no longer something they can sort of just let fester in these Irish American cities.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And do we know where these guns ended up? I wonder if you could tell us a bit about some of your work trying to trace them.

[Ali Watkins]

This was actually the hardest part of the book, right? And it seemed from an American perspective, that should have been so easy because when we first started out on this, when I first learned about this Philadelphia cell, when I learned about the court case, I found a list of serial numbers. And, you know, for these men to have been convicted, there had to be some kind of evidence that these Armalites had turned up in Northern Ireland. And something I had really wanted to do with the book is to be able to not only write this kind of sensational story of how the guns were smuggled out of America, but really look at what they had done and where they had landed and the lives they had impacted in Northern Ireland. That was so incredibly difficult. And it was such a learning experience as an American journalist kind of coming in with, oh, I got all my serial numbers. Can you guys help me? And, like, having several doors figuratively and literally just shut in my face immediately. I mean, we know some things, right? Like, they sent more than 400 guns into the north by the time it was all said and done. We know they were found in Belfast, in Derry, Some of them turned up in more rural areas, parts of Armagh, parts of Tyrone. But it's so difficult as it is with pretty much anything to do with this conflict to get down to the nitty gritty specifics. And when you take a serial number to the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, you know, one of the first things they'll tell you is like, oh, we actually don't talk about serial numbers. And, you know, so being able to connect these dots is actually almost impossible. I'm really deeply proud of. In the book, we were able to trace one of these guns to an actual incident in Northern Ireland. And I just think it's so important when we're talking about American fingerprints in Northern Ireland to really look at, like, that kind of spiral of consequence and looking at how different the lives are, both the descendants of Irish Americans who sent these guns over and the families in Northern Ireland who were impacted. And they're kind of these two parallel paths that sort of intersected in this one critical moment. And, you know, the guns tell those stories, but it's almost impossible to find them. So, you know, it was really, really difficult to be able to track any of those guns into Northern Ireland and remains almost impossible.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

I really like that term you used there, spiral of consequence. And you have a quote in the book from Brendan Hughes, who is, you know, a leading figure in the ira, who later said the Nor Aid people had no understanding of what the war was like in Belfast. Do you think that that's fair? I wonder if you could talk a bit about the idea of them being in a conflict when being so, so far away.

[Ali Watkins]

Yeah, it's hard to use those broad platitudes with anything in the Troubles. Right. I'm sure Brendan Hughes felt that when he met with Nor Aid. At the same time, there were people in Norhed who were going back and forth, Vince Conlon being one of them, who did eventually return to Ireland. But there is this kind of bigger question that I think, both as an Irish American and as a reporter, I did really want to sort of pick at that scab in the book of how differently Irish America sometimes views that conflict versus how people in Northern Ireland, people in the Republic, people in the UK view that conflict. So, you know, it's hard for me to say whether Hughes was right in that regard in the 70s. I do think the book also asks the question, in modern times, is Irish America really. Do they romanticize a conflict that they never really had to live through and whose consequence they still don't really have to suffer? There is a lot of that within Irish America, and I think you can still feel very passionate about the conflict while acknowledging some of the damage that was done to Catholic communities, to Protestant communities, you know. So, yeah, I think the book, if anything, I hope it kind of just really makes people think about how they view their own generational legacy. It certainly did with me. You know, as far as the Nor Aid moment, I think there has always been criticism that Irish America was supporting a war they didn't understand. I don't know. At that time, that was totally fair. There were a lot of people involved who had fled from the north and you know, did kind of understand that. But it was a 30 year war and things changed.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

You know, how does this story wrap up, Ali? With a Philadelphia Five court?

[Ali Watkins]

Yeah, I mean, we see in by 1975 there has been this kind of. The Americans can no longer play this game of ignorance with Irish American gun trafficking. And you start to see these big gun running cases show up in US courts. Three members of the Philadelphia Five were caught, two of them were convicted and spent a year in jail and two others wound up going back to Ireland and were not caught, Vince Conlon being one of them. So there is a legal, I'd almost call it a slap on the wrist by today's standards. Like you look at the number of guns and that it's kind of a year in prison for that kind of case these days would never happen. It'd be a much higher consequence. But that probably speaks to, you know, the states kind of wanted it to look like they were being very harsh on these people, but also didn't really want to deal with the fallout of that. So you do see, you know, the gun trafficking cell is kind of shut down. And by the time we reach the late 70s, the IRA has kind of turned to other sources for weapons. You see them going a lot more toward Libya. But that's what's so significant about this Philadelphia story, right? Is that like, sure, the IRA eventually gets a lot more guns from a lot of other places, but what would have happened if America hadn't sent all of those guns right at the start of the conflict? And it's hard to say what might have happened without it.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Finally, Ali, it feels to me like there's been a lot more TV shows, films, books like yours in the last couple of years exploring the troubles and life in Northern Ireland at the time. Why do you think that is?

[Ali Watkins]

I'm tempted to say it's because, you know, the further away we get, it's easier to look back on some of these things, but at the same time, the further away we get, there's still so much that's unresolved too. It's not like there's been a clear punctuation on this conflict and we can all agree how we're going to look back on it. And this is the agreed upon narrative. You know, I think part of it though is you have a generation of particularly young people in Northern Ireland, young people in the uk, young people in the Republic, you know, the ceasefire babies who are looking at this history differently and want to learn about it in a way that is maybe appropriately distanced at least a little bit, you know, so that they can see it from a different perspective. And, you know, those have been some of the most interesting conversations for me as a reporter is just kind of hearing how the perspective on the conflict, the perspective on some of these divides that still persist in the north has changed. Among that younger generation, there just seems to be a willingness and kind of a different kind of hope, I think with resolution and a path forward. So I think, you know, as far as these broad ideas about the future of the north, those are the voices that are really interesting to listen to. And I think it's why you're seeing some of these recounting some of these reflective TV shows, books or whatever. You know, we're reaching that point where maybe this post ceasefire generation is ready to kind of talk about things.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

That was Ali Watkins speaking to me, Ellie Cawthorn. Her book is called the Next One is For your. Thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Jack Bateman.

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