There has been a lot of noise about Congressman Peter King’s hearings on Muslim terrorism and his support for Irish terrorism. When questioned about this, he said that:
I understand why people who are misinformed might see a parallel. The fact is, the IRA never attacked the United States. And my loyalty is to the United States.
Justin Elliott at Salon’s War Room points out that the IRA has killed Americans, but I wanted to find out if King’s claim is actually true. I couldn’t find any Irish Republican attacks in the US, but from 1866 to 1871 fighters from the Fenian Brotherhood, some of whom called themselves the “Irish Republican Army” with “IRA” buttons and were the first known use of that name, launched a series of raids into Canada.They were defeated by Canadian troops and Andrew Johnson ultimately decided to rein in the fighters, but the threat of a US attack demonstrated by the raids was one of the causes of Canadian confederation in 1867.