I'm confused....I thought the P/IRA was made up of Catholics...the (British) loyalists were the Ulster boys, who were Protestant, no?
I believe you would be correct although I think the term 'protestant' is wrongly used.
Most Americans havn't the faintest clue about Irish history. (nor Lithuanian history or most any history, even true American history and Zinn's BS surely isn't the answer)
I got a heck of an education on the Irish history topic from an Irishman in Harry's New York bar in Paris, France way back when.
British treatment of the Irish, even in the twentieth century has been nothing short of barbaric.
There is an old Irish Ballad; "The hills of Donegal" that tells a heck of a story.
It starts out about one particular day in Irish history.
Each verse gives one more line from the manifests of ships that sailed that day from a particular Irish port.
There were hundreds of barrels of pork, beef, wheat, barley, sheep and cattle on the hoof and other food stuffs.
The final line goes thusly,"And on that day........5,000 people starved to death........In the hills of Donegal."