@Coffeerum thank you for bringing to my attention the sloppy, rushed wording of my last line you quoted which is this "The world didn't know such Catholic voices really existed in Northern Ireland until well after the Troubles."
What I really meant is that the average Joe Bloggs on the street for who Northern Ireland was a vague concept. My apologies for that sloppiness.
There is no question that the world DID know throughout that a clear majority of Catholics opposed Provisional Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA. Governments knew, especially the British, Irish and Americans. Many journalists were aware of it too.
Indeed, American political scientist Richard Rose's 1967 survey confirms a clear majority of Catholics didn't support the use of violence to end partition. See attached.
We can also point to the fact Catholics in Northern Ireland overwhelmingly votedfor the Irish Nationalist party known as the Social And Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) led by Gerry Fitt then John Hume. In fact Hume rammed this point home very publicly when he travelled extensively to internationalise the Troubles around the world.
Hume strongly argued in 1973, for example, that PIRA had no mandate from the people and that the community rejected them:
"We are under no illusions about that (PSF/PIRA) campaign. We are under no illusions that it had no mandate from anybody to get into that campaign. Neither are we under any illusions that if it has victory it will seek no mandate for anything else and that it will impose a dictatorship on the people. So, do not let anybody think that we do not oppose the work of the Provisional I.R.A."
And:
"...the reaction of that community (Catholic), having suffered so much, was to reject every single (PSF/PIRA) candidate who stood before it in the Assembly election without the slightest trace of sympathy for any organisation which supported violence in any shape or form."
The SDLP was the biggest Nationalist party from 1970 until John Hume's retirement in 2001 due to dementia. Spoke volumes to the world!
John Hume is very well known for his total opposition to PIRA and he publicly called them fascists. Catholics voted for him in such numbers that PIRA considered killing him. They didn't, but did firebomb his house using their youth wing and they did the same to Gerry Fitt's house.
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was also well known which mainly had Catholics in it. Again, this group were strongly opposed to PIRA. NICRA achieved a load of reforms very early on too.
So, now it's been established that a clear majority of Catholics had always rejected PSF/PIRA throughout the Troubles and that this was known by the world. Only people who weren't paying much attention thought otherwise.
BTW, when I said we kept it quiet in Ardoyne, I meant from the Republicans on that street. The whole street was very pro-IRA and would have murdered us straightaway had they known we were Catholics who were pro-union. Republicans also attacked Nationalists, so you were fine if you were a Republican.
The same kind of evidence demonstrates that a majority of Palestinians support Hamas and a majority support more armed groups in West Bank too. Shown on page 1.
This is the exact reverse of Catholic support for PIRA during the then active Troubles.
Unlike NI Catholics with SDLP, Palestinians have overwhelmingly rejected the Palestinian Authority led by Abbas' Fatah party. Unlike PA Fatah, the SDLP proved to Catholics they were strong AND achieved things, e.g. Sunningdale 1973, Anglo-Irish Agreement 1985 and Belfast Agreement 1998. Provisional Sinn Féin and Provisional IRA were blamed by the SDLP led by John Hume for being the principle reason why Nationalists had various restrictions on daily life. People were obviously in agreement with Hume. Fatah has failed to convince Palestinians as a majority of the same thing.
It's clearly possible to quantify overall support for any terrorist organisation during active conflicts be they PIRA, Hamas, FARC, etc.
All the available authoritative sources tell us a minority of Gazans are opposed to Hamas - including NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research led by Khalil Shikaki. The majority are not opposed to Hamas. Like PIRA, Hamas intimidate, murder and exile dissenting Palestinian voices until a pro-Hamas majority in Gaza is left. Attached is an example of PIRA turning Riverdale into a pro-IRA estate.