The brutal police action against the Northern Ireland civil rights movement and the raids by loyalist paramilitaries in 1967 brought the IRA back on the map. At that time and until the end of the 80s were Northern Irish Catholics were in a legal vacuum, and were de facto vulnerable to the whims of the official from Britain supported nordir-Protestant police forces and paramilitary groups. Open violence to murders, torture, open prosecution, defamation and exclusion of qualified training and public offices were years of normalcy for the Northern Irish Catholics. The IRA obtained the support of large parts of the Catholic population, and almost had the status of a "protecting power". Some Irish-Americans also supported the violence. 