You're way off with that last line. There was loads of retaliation against the broader Irish Catholic community after IRA bombings.

After the Birmingham pub bombings in the 1970s, the Irish community in Birmingham had a terrible time, Irish owned pubs and shops getting attacked, death threats, refusing to serve Irish people in shops, strikes in factories because people wouldn't work with Irish coworkers. They even had baggage handlers refusing to handle bags for flights going to/from Ireland.

Even in the 1990s I was living in Manchester and someone tried to burn down the Irish Centre in Cheetham Hill the night of an IRA bombing.

Obviously it was even worse in Ireland where you had the loyalist loons with "Any Taig will do" targeting of random Catholics in response to bombings. e.g. taxi drivers with "Catholic" names