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What do people think? If so, then the Americans should too. Most of the money to finance the IRA during the 70's, 80's, and 90's came from America. New York in particular. Hillary Clinton even had to go to Northern Ireland and get photographed with the main players, and hope that the photos would filter back to New York and appear in newspapers there, in order to win the Senate seat for the area. It was only after 9/11, when the financers and planners of the IRA had felt first hand what terrorism feels like, that attitudes within the Irish-American community changed, and it led to the man who was described as the father of Irish America, Ted Kennedy, (who has just died of course), to demand that the IRA stopped and was broken up. The IRA agreed. I don't see what Libya compensating IRA victims, or Irish-America doing it also, would really achieve. It wont bring the people back will it. What are people's views?

Reggie, I know a lot about this. It was always said that after 9/11 the IRA were finished and it was proven to be a correct assessment. The Economist magazine did an article about this a week or two after 9/11 happened and they said "the IRA are a busted flush thanks to Bin Laden". I've known many Irish people in London who all said to me, after 9/11, "now that is has happened to them their attitude to the IRA will change enourmously". Ted Kennedy said in 2005 "no political party can have an armed unit" - referring to how wrong it was that Sinn Fein had elected councillors, MP's, Mayors, etc, and had their own military wing, the IRA. Kennedy was furious over the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney - both of which had recently happened - but the writing was on the wall for the IRA after 11 September 2001. Irish-Americans, who gave money to the IRA, had no idea what it felt like to be on the receiving-end. They did after 9/11.

Reggie, I know more about the whole Northern Ireland thing than most people do. I could literally talk for hours about it.