ABSTRACT
In the strident battle of books, deployment of journals and volley of reviews, Ireland is generally well served. The crucial strand of the IRA stretches far into the past—another way of indicating that contrast to most of the world's revolutionary turbulence, the Irish experience is most protracted. The history of the IRA arms supply has been one of repeated failure, short falls, aborted transport, wasted funds and futile arrangements, brightened from time to time by a special success. The most elegant of all IRA ventures into armaments occurred in the glory days of the Tan War when, for the only time, nearly the entire spectrum of modern talents was available to the secret army: chemical engineers, import-export bankers, solicitors and journalists, foreign travelers, the wealthy and the skilled. In 1916 the rising had more poets than engineers or staff officers, but within two years there were all sorts of volunteers on the island and in the diaspora.
