Edition: U.S. / Global

Unbowed, and Unashamed of His I.R.A. Role

Published: March 16, 2000

GEORGE HARRISON, the unrepentant and, what is more remarkable, unconvicted Irish Republic Army gunrunner, will not be marching in the St. Patrick's Day parade this year.

It seems to Mr. Harrison, who celebrates his 85th birthday this May and who has such a quiet and gentlemanly manner that it is easy to forget he once channeled 3,000 weapons, including 47 machines guns, to the I.R.A., that too many people who march in the parade are ''St. Paddy's Day Irish.'' He doesn't approve, either, of a parade that excludes people because of sexual orientation.

Also, Mr. Harrison -- who calls the April 1998 peace settlement in Ireland ''the latest betrayal'' -- feels he and his friends have never been particularly welcome.

''The likes of us, looking for another day, were more or less not wanted,'' Mr. Harrison says, his County Mayo brogue heavy, though he has been here for decades. ''There was a time we did it clandestinely.''

How can one join a parade clandestinely?

''We went into the parade along the way and didn't raise the banner until we were passing the Cathedral,'' Mr. Harrison says, referring to St. Patrick's.

A chuckle at an old memory, heightened perhaps by the awareness that in a few hours his home-care worker will be coming in.

''Some young galoot come running along. I said, 'I got two words for you and it's not happy birthday, so get yourself scarce.' ''

It has been two and a half years since a fragile power-sharing government was set up in Northern Ireland and the I.R.A. agreed to a cease-fire, and most celebrating St. Patrick's Day tomorrow are grateful.

Then there is George Harrison -- a distinct minority -- who ran the main American gunrunning organization to the I.R.A. for more than 25 years and clings to the concept of a united Ireland, completely free of British presence. He may be seen by many as an anachronism or even a crackpot, whose views are frozen in an Ireland of 40 or 70 years ago.

You could even argue that there is a reason for this: Mr. Harrison has not set foot in Ireland for 60 years.

Still, he is as devoted to his calling as a priest. His one-bedroom apartment in Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, is decorated with pictures of those who have died for Irish independence, and it's not just the Irish cause Mr. Harrison supports. His birthday party in May will double as a fund-raiser for Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row for killing a Philadelphia police officer -- an Irish-American police officer. Though Mr. Harrison had quadruple bypass surgery and a hip replacement, he'll be marching in May with the Lincoln Brigade, which fought against Franco in Spain in another ancient battle.

THIS is the legend of Mr. Harrison: At his 1982 trial on weapons charges, when the prosecutor asserts that he has been running guns for six months, Mr. Harrison, in a grand heroic stance, orders his lawyer to set the record straight.

''Mr. Harrison is insulted,'' his lawyer says. ''He wants the court to know that there has not been a weapon sent to Northern Ireland in the last 25 years without Mr. Harrison.''

To the astonishment of all, Mr. Harrison and four others are acquitted. The jury, apparently, believes defense contentions that the C.I.A. had sanctioned their actions.

Mr. Harrison's own heroes had come out of the Irish struggle for independence from Britain. He quits school in the eighth grade; at 13, he is a courier for the I.R.A., and at 15 he is invited to join.

In 1938, Mr. Harrison comes to New York to find work and joins Clan Na Gael, an organization sympathetic to the I.R.A., and becomes an armed guard for Brinks. He starts acquiring guns in the 50's. He never marries.

While Mr. Harrison will not say whether he ever shot a man, or even discharged a weapon in the direction of one, he speaks openly about acquiring guns. A fellow would come over once a year from Ireland with a list, he says. Most of the weapons were stolen from American Army bases by people interested in making a few bucks. Once, when he had 50 guns and 20,000 rounds of munitions hidden in his house, he was visited by Customs agents and the F.B.I.

''I didn't ask for a search warrant, that would have made them suspicious. I asked if they would like a cup of tea and had a shot thrown in. They left in a very fine mood.''

In the last three decades, more than 3,600 people have been killed on both sides in Ireland in sectarian violence. Mr. Harrison claims to have had no involvement in the most recent attack, the bombing of a marketplace in Omagh over a year ago that killed 29 -- a major embarrassment for many in the republican movement. But he also says that this is war, that the I.R.A. is an army, and that they always warned people when a bomb had been placed.

Lord Mountbatten, killed in 1979, wasn't warned.

''Well, he was an imperialist of the purest type,'' Mr. Harrison says. ''He knew there was a war between Ireland and England. He shouldn't have been vacationing in enemy waters.''

Is Mr. Harrison aware that he is now very much in the minority?

''Revolutionaries are always a minority, sometimes they're a minority within a minority,'' he says. ''Look at the leaders of the 1916 revolution.''

You still raising money for the I.R.A.?

''At this point in time, I'll have to take the Fifth.''

Photo: At a trial in 1982, George Harrison boasted of his role as a gunrunner. (Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times)