Reply #8: Has he really never heard of the days of "no Irish need apply"?

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

Anti-Irish racism in Victorian Britain and 19th century United States included the stereotyping of the Irish as alcoholics, and implications that they monopolized certain (usually low-paying) job markets. In addition, some Irish immigrants married recently free black slaves and were subject to a brutal discrimination. They were often called “white Negroes". Throughout Britain and the US, newspaper illustrations and hand drawings depicted the Irish with the "ape like image" of Irish people's faces appeared to be primordial like a monkey's, and claims of evolutionary racism about the origin of Irish people as an "inferior race" compared to Anglo-Saxons were propagated.

Similar to other immigrant populations, they were sometimes accused of cronyism, and subjected to misrepresentations of their religious and cultural beliefs. The Irish were labelled as practicing Pagans and in that time (1800s), anyone not being a "Christian" in a traditional British sense was deemed "immoral" and "demonic". Catholics were particularly singled out, and indigenous folkloric and mythological beliefs and customs were ridiculed. Nineteenth century Protestant American "Nativist" prejudice against Irish Catholics reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the Know Nothing Movement, which tried to oust Catholics from public office. . . .

The 1862 song, "No Irish Need Apply", was inspired by NINA signs in London. Later the song was adapted by Irish Americans to include their experiences as well. The issue of job discrimination against Irish immigrants to the United States is a hotly debated issue among historians, with some insisting that the "No Irish need apply" signs so familiar to the Irish in memory were myths, and others arguing that not only did the signs exist, but that the phrase was also seen in print ads and that the Irish continued to be discriminated against in various professions into the 20th century.