US State Department and White House papers, some recently declassified, offer insights into the US view of the Republic and the activities of the US embassy in Dublin in the early 1970s. Denis Staunton has been sifting through the Washington archives.
The American embassy in Dublin warned Washington after Bloody Sunday in 1972 that its failure to press Britain to change its policy in the North threatened to plunge Ireland into civil war, according to recently declassified State Department and White House papers.
The embassy wrote in February 1972 that US national interests could suffer if a deepening conflict diverted British troops from Nato duties and toppled the Government in Dublin.
"The sober view of people in the Government here, and of most of the diplomatic corps - including ourselves and members of the British mission - is that the present course of events on this island, if not modified by a change in British policy, runs a grave risk of leading to civil war, or at least further bloodshed . . .
"Further, if the present course is not altered and this island becomes convulsed, it is difficult to predict what sort of Dublin government would emerge in the aftermath, with significant consequences for ourselves, the EEC and western Europe.
"Finally, we think that our government would wish to say it did not stand by unconcernedly as Ireland headed towards bloodshed," it said.
Since The Troubles began in 1969, Washington had refused to intervene with Britain, either publicly or in private, on the basis that the political problems were a domestic concern of the United Kingdom.
"The United States has no appropriate basis to intervene in the domestic issues of another sovereign country, and we do not wish to become involved in the political debate over Irish partition or reunification," the State Department said in a September 1969 briefing paper.
After Bloody Sunday, as external affairs minister Patrick J Hillery flew to Washington to urge the US to support a proposal for four-party talks on the North, British foreign secretary Alec Douglas-Home wrote to US secretary of state William Rogers.
"The demands put forward by Dr Hillery's government are not only inappropriate but tend to make the situation worse, raising as they do the problem of a united Ireland.
"This is not a matter where HMG [Her Majesty's Government] can lay down the law.
"If the majority in Northern Ireland wanted reunification we should gladly accept. But two-thirds of the population remain resolutely opposed," he wrote.
In July 1972, president Richard Nixon asked the National Security Council to consider what the US could do to help achieve "a solution to the Ulster problem". Nixon's national security adviser Al Haig acknowledged that the US administration's refusal to intervene created political problems for the president and angered Irish-Americans.
Haig believed, however, that any change in policy would be self-defeating and that "there is no way we can out-Kennedy Kennedy" on the issue.
"The very fact that US Catholics are heartened by our domestic policies on abortion, busing and aid to parochial schools should more than compensate for a lack of do-goodism on the Ulster problem," he wrote.
The American embassy in Dublin received regular, detailed, confidential briefings from senior Irish diplomats, including Eamon Gallagher (Jack Lynch's top adviser on the North) and Sean Donlon, who later became Irish ambassador to Washington.
Embassy reports of these briefings describe frank conversations about Irish policy on the North and the Government's political difficulties.
In the summer of 1970, Washington was hungry for details of the events that led to the Arms Trial, expressing concern about the future of Lynch's government and his conciliatory policy towards the North.
Ambassador John D Moore told the State Department that Dublin, "which is a gossiping town" was full of "unfounded nonsense" about the gun-running plot and expressed doubt about any involvement on the part of Charles J Haughey.
"Mr Haughey has always struck me as an intelligent man and a cool customer.
"If, in fact, he is involved it must have been for some political reason or perhaps he was just doing a favor for a friend or relative, but I should be surprised if he is convicted . . .
"The 'inside information' I hear is deeply colored by the extreme dislike of Haughey which has come into the open among his fellow leaders of the Fianna Fáil. "They imply the most dreadful things against him but I don't think the trial will support all this, if there is a trial," he wrote.
In September 1971, alarmed by reports that 75 per cent of IRA funds came from American supporters, the US authorities started to investigate Republican supporters in New York and other American cities.
In June 1971, Robert DuBose, the State Department official responsible for Ireland, was called to the White House to be told of the imminent indictment of a number of US citizens for attempting to buy guns for the IRA.
Despite the fact that both Dublin and London had been pressing Washington to crack down on IRA supporters, the White House did not want to inform London or Dublin about the investigations until charges were brought.
"This move does NOT mean we are getting involved in the NI question. We are NOT working with the British; we are merely keeping order in our own house.
"The reasoning is, I admit, a bit shaky, but this is an election year and I won't go into the reasons why all of this is a bit delicate.
"In fact, these indictments may never come off at all," Mr DuBose wrote.
The following year, in 1972, five Irish-Americans were then subpoenaed in Fort Worth, Texas in connection with a plot to smuggle guns to the IRA. The men, who became known as the Fort Worth Five, spent almost a year in prison but were not charged.