"No Irish Need Apply": Anti-Irish sentiments in 19th century America

“Scratch a convict or a pauper and the chances are you tickle the skin of an Irishman.” - Chicago Evening Post

During The Great Famine of 1852 over one million Irish citizens starved to death due to a loss of that year's potato crop, and another million people immigrated to America. This influx of poor, and for the most part uneducated, people moving into cities of the East such as Boston and New York gave rise to a number of social problems. Among these problems was that jobs were harder to find, there was an increase in panhandling in the cities, and crime rates rose. In response to the increase in job competitiveness as well as crime rates, many native born American workers and citizens joined the nativist "Know Nothing Party." This political party ran on an anti-immigration platform and exacerbated the hostility toward the incoming masses of Irish immigrants. For example, when advertising for help some store owners would add the words "No Irish Need Apply"(or NINA for short). Due to a lack of income many of the poor Irish immigrants turned to crime or panhandling in order to survive. This cycle of poverty and crime kept many of the Irish immigrants in slums and tenement houses, which meant that the children of Irish immigrants were also disadvantaged and as such they too were likely to turn to crime or panhandling. These and other undesirable behaviors generated even more prejudice against the Irish, making it increasingly difficult for Irish people to get jobs and rise out of poverty. For example, if the man in the song "No Irish Need Apply" did in fact hit the store owner because he was insulted, his actions would have reflected poorly on the Irish immigrants and would make it harder for any store to hire the "angry" or "aggressive" Irish people. However, this treatment would make them even angrier (as in the video), resulting in a cycle of continuing poverty and aggression.

In the book, "Maggie, Girl of the Streets," Author Stephen Crane shows how the city environment in which the Irish immigrants live actively keeps them in poverty. In the first scene in the book Jimmie yells at the children of Devil's Row, "these micks can't make me run"(3). The fact that his remarks cause "renewed wrath" from the boys shows just how much of a sensitive topic this is in both the boy's life (since it obviously aggravates them) as well as the author's time period. In fact, this is the only insult in the whole fight that the character actually says rather than being explained in third person using words such as "roaring curses" or "words of challenge"(4,5). By bringing attention to the problems of the Irish in the first page of the book, Stephen Crane leads the reader to assume that all the main characters in the book are Irish, not just the kids from Devils Row. One stereotypical trait that is attributed to the Irish is their habit of excessive drinking and fighting, something which is shown to exist in the Johnson household in the first chapter when a fight erupts between Maggie's parents due to the mother's drinking problem. The excessive domestic strife that is caused by liquor eventually leads to Maggie's departure from her abusive and unstable household. The sad reality of this book is that from the very first chapter the domestic and social problems (excessive drinking and domestic instability) that the city environment causes for its citizens in effect seals Maggie's fate at the end of the book. What started as racism against the Irish evolved into a system in which the city itself keeps the unfortunate in a state of perpetual poverty and disgrace, even if not all the people involved are Irish.

More Prejudice against the Irish people in newspapers and satires:

However, prejudice against the Irish people praciticaly no longer exists. On the contrary Irish people are quiet successful. For Example, Take some of these well-known Irish actors:

Colin Farell: Dare Devil, The Minority Report, S. W. A. T.
Liam Neeson: Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Batman Begins, Clash of the Titans

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment