Saturday, April 6

"No Irish Need Apply"

Ugh. I dislike greatly when Irish people play this card today, as Maureen Dowd does in her column today, blaming Donald Trump for the world's current "bloodbath" and cries from all corners -- especially the Evangelists eying/eyeing Israel -- that EndTimes are upon us.

Call out the myths when and where you see them.  We've got to let reality rule.  This means too, acknowledging Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. is the commander-in-chief, leading our country today. Don't let your fears of Donald Trump blind you to reality, then or now?

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My Irish immigrant father lived through the cruel “No Irish Need Apply” era. ---------- Resptfully Maureen, that was a bit of an amplified myth, despite the cruel stories that have been passed on. Sure there was anti-immigrant and definitely anti-Catholic bias, but the "No Irish Need Apply" signs were not hanging in every storefront. You noted before, your female ancestors were even taken into wealthy homes to work as "domestics". Please do your research before dropping lines like that and continuing those exaggerated victimization myths? Vox had an article on 3/17/2015 responding to Richard Jensen's article in 2002. (I would posit the real trouble was not the no jobs available, but the riskiness/death rates for those jobs the Irish immigrants DID fill in overwhelming numbers, where they WERE encouraged to apply...) The Irish were assimilated, educated and hired here -- often in many industries where immigrants started out, there was great danger to workers, nobody can deny. For the record, my father came from the Old Country too -- about a generation after yours tho. Please, can we acknowledge that for many Irishmen and Irishwomen, America has been a very very good place for them, and their descendants?