Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Abergen.

This day August 11th, 1973, Justice William Douglas of the Supreme Court grants bail to the so-called

Fort Worth Five, a group of Irish-born New Yorkers jailed in Texas since January for refusing to answer a federal grand

jury's questions about illegal gun purchases. Their case had risen through the legal

ranks and gained a fair amount of press because the group had steadfastly refused to cooperate

with law enforcement inquiries into gun shipments from America to Ireland.

These weapons were intended to help the IRA and the ongoing fight for Irish independence.

So here we have the Nixon administration going after American citizens, run through the lens of the Irish independence movement.

And I will say that, you know, if you thought

that the decades long, centuries long fight for Irish independence

was a little confusing with all the factions and splits

and so forth, now we get to throw on all sorts

of freedom fighters in the US and other sort of factions and so forth.

So it is quite a interesting web, but luckily someone has done a fantastic job of reporting on that web.

There's a new podcast called Foreign Agent reported and hosted by

Nate Levy, which is all about the IRA's American Connection and the regular Irish

Americans who found themselves caught up in this freedom fight.

It is truly excellent, I will say,

and I listened to it a few months ago

and binged right through it.

And we welcome Nate Lavey now

...