No Irish Need Apply Analysis

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When the Irish Populace migrated to the Land of Dreams, America, they were greeted with the signs of No Irish Need Apply. This was mainly at the end of the 19th Century when racial and ethnic discrimination was at its peak and was mainly due to the religious differences the Irish had. The Irish being followers of the Catholic Church were renounced and ridiculed, their cultural differences misinterpreted, their image disgraced by terming them alcoholics. People with Irish accent or Irish names were denied public employments and housing opportunities.
 Myth of Victimization was mainly the thought process of historian RichardJ. Jensen; he argued that the Anti-Irish job discrimination was not a significant factor in the United States, that the signs stating No Irish Need Apply were quite rare or even nonexistent. He suggests in his paper that the NINA slogan might have originated in the United Kingdom after the rebellion of the Irish people by the English to indicate their distrust. His theory suggests that it was just a belief that was passed on generation after generation with no substantial evidence existing to back this up. According to him the main reason of discontent between the Irish and the Americans was the Catholic nature of most Irish men. To back his statements he performed searches on classified ads in many newspapers including the Booklyn Eagle, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune , The Nation, The New York Times and found very few results in searches as old as 1851. There was almost entirely no Irish discrimination in Job opportunities for men (Jensen).
 According to him the Irish being victimized was just an urban legend to placatethem and to motivate them to work harder to improve their socioeconomic progress. ...

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... society which despised them and was waiting to ridicule and embarrass them at their slightest mistake (Maley).
 The first Irish arrivals therefore decided to stick together in groups rather than work as individuals. They formed all-Irish work crews for construction companies and eventually ended up monopolizing a few markets. This myth of being victimized at every stage warned the Irish community to be wary of others outside their community, the others who are waiting to lure them and destroy their identity and social progress. This slogan was a self-soothing explanation to their low rates of upward social mobility back in the 18th and 19th Century. It identified a culprit to blame and justified their ruffian behavior. Even after prosperity this myth didn’t vanish and still serves to keep them on guard about how other communities might betray them or pull them down.

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