KarenH:

As to your point about American involvement in Irish Republican affairs, we certainly were and are. Check out Stan Rogers' song "House of Orange". Americans have been involved in the affairs of EVERY country we came from.

Spanish Americans altered the economy of Europe with all the gold they 'inherited' from the locals. They also brought pellagra to Italian peasants by trying to feed them on a monoculture of American corn (maize). English colonists came as a refuge from Catholic England then during the Puritan Revolutioin fed a backflow of Protestants to England. Irish Americans worked in various ways for Ireland. Canadians, too. If you haven't heard Stan Rogers' song "House of Orange" check it out for a personal response to the issue. Chinese Americans supported Sun-yat-Sen. Americans from Mexico and points South have supported their fellows across borders. Jewish Americans sent money and bodies to the Palestinians in the 1930s and 40s when Palestinians were invariably Jews (and with Irish American support, because they were both subverting English governing bodies).

Americans all come from somewhere and have usually weighed in on the issues and environments from which they came.

With no knowledge whatsoever I'm going to assert that the very first Americans sent back emissaries across the Bering Strait to tell those mammoth hunting bastards how stupid they were for some reason. And 'help' them improve or amend their hunting and fighting prowess.


(I know I mentioned Stan Rogers' twice. He's THAT good!)