A former US marine and volunteer with the IRA with Roscommon connections will launch his memoir tomorrow night.
James Crawley whose father Brendan was from Loughglynn and grew up in the US received formal military training to prepare him for joining the Irish Republican Army.
In his new book 'The Yank' which will be launched at the Four Seasons Hotel in Monaghan tomorrow evening he explores a meeting with Martin McGuiness in a pub Ballinamore which saw him travel to the US to work alongside James Whitey Bulger.
James who lived in Castelrea for a period was convicted and served time in 1984 for his involvement in the importation of weapons to Irelalnd on board the Martina Ann.
Speaking to the Joe Finnegan Show he says he was always motivated to join in the IRA to fight for freedom.
''I had political ideals that I believed in, I firmly believe that you should put your money where your mouth is. And I remember thinking that from time to time that that should be done and I'm not the sort of person to sit on the sidelines and you know, let somebody else do it. So I just felt that as my duty within my own personal belief system, that if Irish men and women and I know it what was a small number, and I know it wasn't representative, but if Irish men and women in this generation were taken up the fight against the British occupation, then I wanted to stand beside them.''
