Irish Northern Aid Committee

synonyms: NORAID The Irish Northern Aid Committee was most commonly known as NORAID. The organisation was established in 1969 and based in the United States of America (USA). It saw its main role as providing support and financial assistance to the republican movement during the conflict in Northern Ireland. In turn this was to give rise to allegations, which Noraid always denied, that it was involved in giving active assistance to the campaign of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). Despite these denials in 1977 the organisation was made to register as an agent of PIRA by the American government. During the 1980s and 1990s Noraid was to experience a series of internal splits caused by disagreements with the strategy then being adopted by the republican leadership in Ireland. As a result its profile and influence was to suffer as divisions widened with the formation of the Friends of Sinn Féin group in America.