From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

We have been contacted by Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, who is writing an entry
on 'Irish Nurses in post World War II Britain' for the European
Encyclopaedia on Migration which will be published by Cambridge
University Press. Margaret wrote on nurses in Bernadette Whelan (ed.)
Women and paid Work'. Margaret has already looked at the two books by
Enda Delaney, articles by Pauric Travers, the Andy Bielenberg
collection, the Commission on Emigration and Other Population Problems.
So that she has done the obvious things.

I did remark to her that this seems a curiously specific encyclopaedia
entry... I have now seen the Encylopaedia outline, and think I see the
rationale. There are specific entries on a number of such groups, some
Irish, which have attracted some comment or literature. Indeed some of
you may be writing these entries.

On nurses and midwifes. Sharon Lambert's book has some nurses. I do
recall that the PRO's 'Moving Here' project - a lottery funded web
project (see earlier Ir-D messages) - was going to display some
documents which mentioned Irish nurses... From their list I see...

LAB 8/1301, Recruitment of nurses. Eire emigration policy 1946 30
LAB 9/98, Centralised scheme of recruitment from Eire 1944-1951 400
LAB 12/284, Nursing in Eire: recruitment of nurses 1944-1947 30

So that there might be more in the PRO about that.

Can anyone else offer advice to Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh.
Email cagusm[at]hotmail.com
I have a vague memory of some work on nurses and midwifes, but so far my
notes have turned up nothing.

Paddy


- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Personal Fax 0044 (0) 709 236 9050

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: "William Mulligan Jr."
To:
Subject: RE: Ir-D `No Irish' 21

I am sorry to impose again on the list.

Prof. Jensen seems overly sensitive to very simple questions
from someone who knows and respects his work of 30 years ago. I have
some questions about the methodology of his latest work because it does
not fit into what I know about the Irish experience in America from my
own research and (yes) life experience. I never questioned whether his
research design was perfect -- I doubt such a thing as a perfect
research design exists. Why would anyone expect one to be? So where
does that come from? I may, in the end, be wrong and Prof. Jensen right
- -- I seriously doubt that, but it is possible. That said, I don't think
it is unreasonable for me -- or anyone -- to ask questions of the great
man and expect answers rather than rhetoric. I've always thought that
was how scholarship moved forward -- through civil discourse and debate
based on questions raised. I have tried very hard to be civil and hope
that I have been.

Prof. Jensen doesn't address any of the points I made or answer
any of the questions I raised in his latest post as I read it. The
ground of the discussion seems to shift with him; questions that are
raised are ignored and new issues raised out of left field. Instead, he
seems to veer very close to an ad hominem attack, and tries to overwhelm
us all with the sheer weight of his evidence. What have I read? Enough
to have serious questions about your findings, Prof. Jensen, but I don't
measure how much I've read. An odd practice. In have no idea how many
pages of newspapers I've gone through, never thought to keep track. I
will answer your question, however inappropriate, before I close.

An important issue here is not how many thousand pages of
newspapers Prof. Jensen has searched on-line or how many thousand
newspaper ads he has searched the same way, but whether the papers those
pages and ads are drawn from are representative of the range of places
Irish people lived during the period under discussion. One could, I
supposed search a million pages or ads, but if they were only from a
narrow range of communities one could question their representativeness.
I think it a reasonable question to ask -- how many different
communities are represented in your research base and what are they? He
chided me for presenting evidence of prejudice rather than
discrimination but many of the magazines he cites, if not all of them,
would not have had job ads. One did not advertise for a maid in Harpers
Weekly or Nation. In fact a large proportion of the sources he cites
would be more reflective of attitudes than practice. I am not sure how
abolitionist publications and some of his other sources are relevant
here, but accept that perhaps they may be. But, I would be very
surprised if anti-Irish or anti-Catholic sentiment influenced any state
to secede from the Union in 1860 or 1861. So, how is that material
relevant? Like his earlier reference to the Irish and the AFL supporting
immigration restriction, one can only ask how is this relevant to what
is being discussed? We get no answer. There is no doubt that Prof.
Jensen has searched a lot of material - but the question remains as to
what extent the materials have determined what he found, rather than the
reality of the lives of the people he is studying. There is more I would
like to say here, but this is already too long and I have noted no one
else is joining the discussion. This is not the Mulligan/Jensen Show.

I am still concerned that newspaper ads may not be the best way
to establish discrimination against a group. If there is sufficient
prejudice ads are not needed. Checking real estate ads in newspapers
would not identify "red lining" and other practices in the real estate
and mortgage banking industries that maintained racial discrimination
for many years, for example. The sources Prof. Jensen has searched are
not necessarily going to fully answer the questions he raises. Prejudice
and discrimination are more complex and more deeply embedded in a
society than can be fully revealed by newspapers ads or the lack
thereof.

Finally, what have I read that allows me to dare to disagree
with Prof. Jensen? My research is on the Irish in the Michigan Copper
Country and I have read the surviving newspapers from that region from
the earliest papers through about 1900. It's not a sample, it's what is
left. I have actually read the papers, all the minutiae of the life of
the community. I've also gone through the census schedules and the
employment records of the mining companies and just about everything
else I can find. Since Prof. Jensen is into quantifying this -- I have
filled most of a four-drawer file cabinet with notes. What I am finding
is that there was a window of real opportunity for the Irish during the
first 10-15 years of settlement. After that opportunities for the Irish,
especially to advance within the mining companies, began to diminish and
out migration began and increased steadily. I need to do more research
and write more of this up, but the pattern that is emerging is clear.

I thank Paddy and the list for the indulgence of this long third
post on this subject. I will not impose on the list again on this
subject unless others join in and there is evidence of more interest.



William H. Mulligan, Jr.
Professor of History
Murray State University

Please Note New Address: BillMulligan[at]murray-ky.net

From: "Nieciecki, Daniel"
To: "'irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk'"
Subject: Marxist biblio?


Would anyone be able to recommend any work on Irish diaspora topics--or
migrations in general--done from a Marxist perspective, whether overtly
or subtly?

I would greatly appreciate any bibliographical suggestions!

Thanks,
Daniel Oisín Nieciecki
NYU

From: "Mary J. Hickman"
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish Nurses in Britain


Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh should also look at Walter, B. (1989) Irish Women
in London, 2nd edition, London Borough of Ealing - which has a chapter
on Irish nurses in London. I think Bronwen's book Outsiders Inside on
Irish women's migration also has material on Irish nurses. The research
on midwives was done by an MA student at the Institute for Irish
Studies, Liverpool University in the late 1980s - unfortunately I cannot
recall her name.

Mary Hickman

irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk wrote:

> From Email Patrick O'Sullivan
>
> We have been contacted by Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, who is writing an
> entry on 'Irish Nurses in post World War II Britain' for the European
> Encyclopaedia on Migration which will be published by Cambridge
> University Press. Margaret wrote on nurses in Bernadette Whelan (ed.)

> Women and paid Work'. Margaret has already looked at the two books by

> Enda Delaney, articles by Pauric Travers, the Andy Bielenberg
> collection, the Commission on Emigration and Other Population
> Problems. So that she has done the obvious things.
>

From Email Patrick O'Sullivan

Without wishing to be discourteous to anyone I think it is time to ring
down the curtain on this latest Irish-Diaspora list exchange about 'No
Irish Need Apply'. It seems to me there are real inter-disciplinary,
methodological issues here - but perhaps this is not the way to address
them. I am reminded of the old joke about 'arguing from different
premises...' And I am always perturbed when these things become
acronyms - NINA daughter of MOPE...

I was watching The West Wing the other night, and that lovely actor John
Spencer - he reminds me a bit of Dan Duryea. Spencer was for a while in
LA Law, as a street-wise Irish-American lawyer called, I think,
Mullaney. I used to examine Mullaney's office with delight - I don't
think this was referred to in the script, but his office was full of
Irish-American stuff. The maps of Ireland, the coats of arms, the flags
- - was there a No Irish Need Apply sign? I cannot recall. But I often
think that the set dressers must have had a lovely time - going out and
buying all that stuff. Was I the only one in the world to appreciate
their hard work?

Paddy


- --
Patrick O'Sullivan
Head of the Irish Diaspora Research Unit

Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Email Patrick O'Sullivan
Personal Fax 0044 (0) 709 236 9050

Irish-Diaspora list
Irish Diaspora Studies http://www.brad.ac.uk/acad/diaspora/
Irish Diaspora Net Archive http://www.irishdiaspora.net

Irish Diaspora Research Unit
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Bradford
Bradford BD7 1DP
Yorkshire
England

From: "Richard Jensen"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 22

from Richard Jensen rjensen[at]uic.edu

Was there job discrimination against Irish men in the 19th
century?
1. Irish myth: yes, massive amounts, typified by NINA story
2. Scholars: generally have accepted the myth.
a) Evidence conists entirely of the folk myth itself
3. Jensen: no statistical evidence; no evidence whatever apart
from the NINA myth itself.
a) Is there any independent evidence--such as exists in
abundance for Chinese?
1) no
b) If there was job discrimination against men it would have
appeared in newspaper job ads. I looked at the New York
Times for 40 years -- it's indexed!!--and it was a major
paper in the city with very large Irish work force. Found
n=1 ad (for a teenage boy). I concluded that job
discrimination was very rare. Other historians have found
N=0 ads. They have been *looking* as proven by the
widespread use of a hoax-ad which appears on scholarly sites
and even on a museum exhibit.
1) Mulligan says what about all the other newspapers? No one
has found any NINA ads for men in them either. Two
historians who read every issue of Lowell and Newburyport
newspapers looking for Irish materials say they saw zero
ads. Conclusion: until someone FINDS a couple ads scholars
can conclude there were very few.
2) Did newspapers refuse to publish these ads. Probably so in
Boston, but the existence of NINA in a few New York ads for
Irish women domestic workers, proves that NY newspapers
were
prepared to publish discriminatory ads against Irish. They
published none because no employer paid for such ads.

3) Should historians start scanning newspapers? Skip the snip
hunt. www.newspaperarchive.com is putting online hundreds
of
thousands of pages of old newspapers. All searchable. Try
it
yourself free--enter "No Irish Apply" and sort the results
by date. One real ad and much commentary on the NINA slogan
itself.
4. What about Michigan? Mulligan himself concludes the mine
owners hired Irish regularly at mid-century.
a) Throughout the northeast, Protestant businessmen borrowed
and invested tens of millions of dollars in textile mills
knowing that most of their workers would be Irish or French
Catholics. (In Lowell they replaced the Protestant Yankee
"Lowell Girls" with new immigrants.) Opposition to these new
workers? zip. (I have seen one report of a complaint in
Manchester in 1840s.) This seems very strong evidence to
me.
b) Did employers sometimes favor their own ethnic group? yes
that was quite common (especially among the Irish).
5. If you really wanted to stop Irish employment how would you
do it?
a) Try immigration restriction. (Did not happen)
b) Attack employers who hired Irish (did not happen)
c) Go on strike when Irish were hired (did not happen)
d) "did not happen" = no historian has found an example, in
contrast to hundreds or thousands of documents showing this
did happen to the Chinese
6. What explains the folk belief in NINA?
a) RJ answer: The Irish needed the myth for their internal
solidarity. The NINA came directly from a song--which was
basically imported from London in 1862, and which spread
very fast worldwide through the Irish diaspora.
b) Alternative theory: none
7. RJ conclusion: Irish needed a sense of victimization in the
job market (because of their solidarity ethic) and created
an imaginary one.

From: "Richard Jensen"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 25

from Richard Jensen rjensen[at]uic.edu
In reply to Marion Casey--

The ProQuest historical newspaper database is the same one I used. It
has 50+ newspapers in it and I searched all of them (all the NINA turned
out to be references to the slogan, rather than ads.) Casey found 31
NINA ads for women domestics in the 1854-1900 period (and none for men).
That's one ad per year for maids--about right. I analyzed the situation
for women in some depth in my essay [she really ought to look at it:
http://tigger.uic.edu/~rjensen/no-irish.htm

The first ad I found was from the London Times Nov 3, 1829
for maid of all work in small household. My essay argues
that the NINA slogan was common in London in the 1820s. The song in
question was written about a maid in London in 1862, brought immediately
to America, rewritten to stress humiliation to Irish *men* and became a
big hit. The song carried the myth, not the nonexistent signs or very
rare ads.

The Boston 1915 sign is a recent hoax--how else can you
explain why there are 14 copies of it for sale on ebay.com
today-- and zero NINA signs of any other vintage?

Forwarded on behalf of
John Brannigan
University College Dublin,

Irish University Review

Special Issue: John McGahern (Spring/Summer 2005)

The Irish University Review invites submissions for a special issue of
the
journal devoted to the work of John McGahern. McGahern is one of
Ireland's
most celebrated and controversial novelists and short story writers,
whose
second novel, The Dark, was banned in 1966, and whose most recent novel,

That They May Face The Rising Sun (2002) has earned him the accolade of
'Ireland's greatest living novelist' (The Observer). The journal invites

submissions on all aspects of McGahern's writings, and welcomes in
particular submissions addressing McGahern's lesser known work,
including
his stage, radio, and screen-plays, and those placing McGahern's work in
its
various contexts.

Each essay in the journal issue should be approximately 5,000 words, and

should be prepared according to the style guidelines available on
request
from the guest editor of this issue.

Send submissions by mail (one printed copy of the essay with one page of

curriculum vitae) to John Brannigan, Guest editor, IUR, Dept of English,

University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland. The
deadline for submission in the first instance is 1st December 2003.
Essays
accepted for publication are expected to be delivered in final format in

Autumn 2004.

From: Marion Casey
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 23


First, I would like to commend Bill Mulligan for his very thoughtful and
professional responses to Richard Jensen.

Now, let's meet Jensen on his own turf.

He explains the "folk belief in NINA" by stating "The NINA came directly
from a song--which was basically imported from London in 1862, and which
spread very fast worldwide through the Irish diaspora." In his own
words, he "looked at the New York Times for 40 years -- it's
indexed!!--and it was a major paper in the city with very large Irish
work force." He says he "found n=1 ad (for a teenage boy). I concluded
that job discrimination was very rare. Other historians have found N=0
ads. They have been *looking* as proven by the widespread use of a
hoax-ad which appears on scholarly sites and even on a museum exhibit."

However, if you search for the phrase "No Irish Need Apply" in the New
York Times (est. 1851) by using the tremendous online resource ProQuest
Historical Newspapers, it returns 31 advertisements before 1900. While
I have not had the time to go through every single one of these, there
are two important things to note.

The earliest advertisement is in the 10 November 1854 issue, on page 5:

"GIRL WANTED. -- In a small private family -- a young girl, 14 or 15
years old, either American or German, to take care of a young child.
She must have good references. Wages $3 a month. No Irish need apply.
Call at No. 89 McDougal St."

The latest advertisement is in the 5 April 1894 issue, on page 7:

"WANTED. -- A first-class cook; wages $20; no Irish need apply. 322
West 76th St., Thursday and Friday, from 9 to 12."

Only thirty-one ads over 50 years...hmmm....we can conclude that, while
blatant employment discrimination in New York Times classified
advertisements appears to have been on the decline in the second half of
the nineteenth century, it clearly predates the 1862 song "No Irish Need
Apply" and survives in some quarters well beyond the 1870s.

As for what Prof. Jensen calls the "hoax-ad" that is currently in
circulation, my own extensive research on the Irish image in American
popular culture leads me to another conclusion. By the time the Boston
Sign Company creates its "No Irish Need Apply" placard in 1915, we may
in fact be looking at a very different phenomenon than discriminatory
hiring practices or an imaginary need for a "sense of victimization in
the job market." It is somewhat akin to the University of Notre Dame
trademarking the "Fighting Irish" sobriquet in 1950 or the use of the
word "nigger" by contemporary African Americans. Memory can inspire
popular culture as much as popular culture can reinforce memory. As
historians we must handle both very carefully.

Marion R. Casey
Department of History
New York University

From: "Richard Jensen"
Subject: Holyoke, Mass.

This story ran on page B1 of the Boston Globe on 3/27/2003. Holyoke
battles ethnic tension By Sarah Schweitzer, Globe Staff, 3/27/2003

HOLYOKE -- In this city once dubbed Ireland Parish, where Irish
immigrants built the canals and powered the mills that made it the
industrial hub of the Connecticut River Valley, the St. Patrick's Day
parade is still an affair of crowns and emerald sheen, a kind of ode to
a history slipping away.

Holyoke may have an Irish mayor -- and city treasurer and council
president -- but Irish no longer define life here. After years of
influx, the Puerto Ricans who fled a crumbling economy back home now
make up about 40 percent of the population. They have transformed
blue-collar bars into bodegas, shoe shops into Pentecostal churches, and
rice-and-beans into a culinary staple.

Yet the parade carries on, always grand -- an annual assertion of the
city's deep Irish imprint. Indeed, some rank it the second most
impressive in the country (after New York) with its two dozen floats,
and an estimated crowd each year of around 250,000.

But last Sunday, as the procession swept through the streets, gunfire
rang out. Police say 18-year-old Felix Rodriguez fired a gun seven times
into the crowd as he took aim at a man he'd argued with earlier about
drugs. Police say he shot his alleged target, who remains hospitalized,
along with three bystanders, a woman and two men, all of whom have been
treated and released. The four victims are Latino, as is Rodriguez,
along with three others arrested in connection with the shooting. The
attack, so brazen and public, was a jolt to longtime residents who have
struggled to contain gun violence fueled by the drug trade and gang
rivalries. And, because it happened on the day most treasured by the
Irish-American community, the shooting has raised concerns about ethnic
relations, which historically have been delicate, but in recent years
have improved with the election of Latinos to political office and other
power shifting.

'A lot of people are feeling awkward right now,' said City Councilor
Alex Sanchez, who represents the ward where the shooting took place.
'It doesn't necessarily reflect every Hispanic, but people are saying
the Hispanics ruined St. Patrick's Day.

'We feel apologetic,' he added. 'But it's just unfortunate; no one
set out to ruin the day.'

Other city leaders, including its Irish-American politicians, have
sought to calm nerves, saying no apologies are needed, that the crime
was not representative of the Latino community. 'It's easy to focus
blame on a community,' said Mayor Michael J. Sullivan, who will run for
a third term, so far unopposed. 'But that's not the case. This is urban
terrorism -- a total disregard for civility.'

Sullivan, who has made high-profile Latino appointments, noted that
problems during the parade were not confined to the downtown Latino
neighborhoods. In the Highlands -- the desirable area where Yankees once
dominated and many Irish-Americans now live, there were also
disturbances, including one involving the spraying of Mace.

But at Luchini's Breakfast and Lunch Restaurant, where Holyoke's
long-timers, many with Irish, French-Canadian, or Polish roots, gather
to read the Springfield Union-News and gossip, talk of the shooting this
week veered to remembrances of sweeter times, when factory jobs were
plentiful, everyone from Northampton flocked to Holyoke's streets for
night-time frivolity, and gun violence was low.

Some blamed the violence on the economic realities in this city, the
poorest in the state. Neil Moriarty, a lawyer and native of Holyoke who
served on the parade committee this year and marched in the first St.
Patrick's Day parade in 1952, described the shooting as a setback, an
outgrowth of a community where there are needs that go unmet. 'Like any
poor city, you inevitably get the problems of poverty,' Moriarty said.
'I think the Puerto Rican segment of the population is coming along.
But you do get a few bad apples.'

Meanwhile, some residents in recent days have proposed changing the
parade route, ending it before it reaches largely Latino downtown. The
mayor bristles at those suggestions, saying it would be caving in to
unfounded concerns, especially since violent crime has dropped in recent
years. Such a move, he said, would further divide Holyoke.

Ethnic tensions have flared from time to time in Holyoke since Puerto
Ricans first began arriving in the 1950s to work in the Connecticut
River valley tobacco fields. They represented one more wave of
immigrants to an area that had seen influxes of Irish, followed by
French-Canadians, then Germans, and later Polish. Puerto Rican activists
clashed with police over alleged harassment and a neighborhood brought
suit against the city in the 1990s demanding redistricting to increase
Latino representation in elected office. Today three of the 15 city
councilors are Latino.

Ramon Borges-Mendez, a professor at the University of Massachusetts in
Boston who has studied Latino communities in Holyoke and other
Massachusetts industrial cities, said clashes in Holyoke are now less
confrontational. But he said, 'The tension has been sustained all along
- -- it's just taken different forms.'

Most of the city leaders, Latino and Anglo, say Holyoke has worked hard
to forge peace in a diverse population. But several also say a small
city burdened with shuttered factories and struggling schools can only
do so much.

Last fall, the city was offered a federal grant of nearly $1 million to
resettle as many as 60 Somali Muslim families. But city officials said
they could not afford to absorb the residents, and the City Council
voted to return the grant.

Police stress that other lines are being drawn, too. Police Chief
Anthony R. Scott said he will soon begin another 'Take Back Our
Streets' operation, a sweep of the city that will produce arrests or
citations for every violation police witness.

'All people want to live in a safe environment, and we are all up in
arms about this,' Scott said.

- -----

From: "Thomas J. Archdeacon"
To:
Subject: RE: Ir-D `No Irish' 25

Very nice contribution, Marion.

Tom


- -----Original Message-----

From: Marion Casey
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 23


First, I would like to commend Bill Mulligan for his very thoughtful and
professional responses to Richard Jensen.

Now, let's meet Jensen on his own turf.

He explains the "folk belief in NINA" by stating "The NINA came directly
from a song--which was basically imported from London in 1862, and which
spread very fast worldwide through the Irish diaspora." In his own
words, he "looked at the New York Times for 40 years -- it's
indexed!!--and it was a major paper in the city with very large Irish
work force." He says he "found n=1 ad (for a teenage boy). I concluded
that job discrimination was very rare. Other historians have found N=0
ads. They have been *looking* as proven by the widespread use of a
hoax-ad which appears on scholarly sites and even on a museum exhibit."

However, if you search for the phrase "No Irish Need Apply" in the New
York Times (est. 1851) by using the tremendous online resource ProQuest
Historical Newspapers, it returns 31 advertisements before 1900. While
I have not had the time to go through every single one of these, there
are two important things to note.

The earliest advertisement is in the 10 November 1854 issue, on page 5:

"GIRL WANTED. -- In a small private family -- a young girl, 14 or 15
years old, either American or German, to take care of a young child. She
must have good references. Wages $3 a month. No Irish need apply. Call
at No. 89 McDougal St."

The latest advertisement is in the 5 April 1894 issue, on page 7:

"WANTED. -- A first-class cook; wages $20; no Irish need apply. 322
West 76th St., Thursday and Friday, from 9 to 12."

Only thirty-one ads over 50 years...hmmm....we can conclude that, while
blatant employment discrimination in New York Times classified
advertisements appears to have been on the decline in the second half of
the nineteenth century, it clearly predates the 1862 song "No Irish Need
Apply" and survives in some quarters well beyond the 1870s.

As for what Prof. Jensen calls the "hoax-ad" that is currently in
circulation, my own extensive research on the Irish image in American
popular culture leads me to another conclusion. By the time the Boston
Sign Company creates its "No Irish Need Apply" placard in 1915, we may
in fact be looking at a very different phenomenon than discriminatory
hiring practices or an imaginary need for a "sense of victimization in
the job market." It is somewhat akin to the University of Notre Dame
trademarking the "Fighting Irish" sobriquet in 1950 or the use of the
word "nigger" by contemporary African Americans. Memory can inspire
popular culture as much as popular culture can reinforce memory. As
historians we must handle both very carefully.

Marion R. Casey
Department of History
New York University

From: "Richard Jensen"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 27

from Richard Jensen rjensen[at]uic.edu

I found one NINA ad in the NY Times for males (for a teenage boy to work
in a livery stable). Like Dr Casey I did find a few NINA ads for women
domestics -- and discussed them in detail. NINA ads for men were so
rare that it is unlikely that one Irishman in 100 ever saw one in the
19th century.

When you check the newspaperarchive.com search engine--
which I did again yesterday-- you find 100 or so NINA "hits" involving a
couple dozen newspapers large and small. I went through the first 80
and found two ads for domestics (one London, one NYC) and many
references to the slogan. For example a letter writer in the Newport
[RI] Daily News, March 11, 1914 said the only NINA signs or ads he ever
saw applied to domestic servants. More interesting is the use of NINA
in Democratic politics. When the Democrats drew up a local ticket and
left the Irish off, the press commented it was NINA for the party. In
1909 Judge John Goff--an Irishman who was a leading anti-Tammany
reformer and judge in New York City, gave a speech saying the NINA
sentiment had died out after the Civil War; he denounced antisemitism.
Washington Post Feb 15, 1909 The Washington Post May 7, 1905 refers to a
recent stage appearance by Miss Kathleen O'Neill, calling her the
originator of NINA. (Her 1862 song is reproduced in my essay).

From: "Kevin Kenny"
To:
Subject: RE: Ir-D Marxists on Irish Diaspora

From Kevin Kenny, kenny[at]ka.bc.edu

Daniel Oisín Nieciecki asks for work on Irish migration and diaspora (by
which I understand histories of the Irish abroad as well as histories of
the process of migration)
That are "done from a Marxist perspective, whether overtly or subtly."

The single best overarching interpretation of Irish mass migration is
Kerby Miller's hugely influential _Emigrants and Exiles_ (NY: OUP,
1985). Though framed in terms of 'modernisation' and the
'commercialisation of agriculture', Miller's great work is for me firmly
grounded in a marxian conception of history, what drives, and how it
changes. Perhaps Kerby would not agree with me; is so, blame this
reading entirely on ME. When Miller wrote the book, top be sure,
'modernisation theory' in some guises was a break with Marx; yet, in
retrospect these two socio-economic approaches seem more broadly similar
than different, especially given how light-weight some of the
alternative conceptions to history can be.

My apologies to Kerby if I have praised his work in terms he might
disagree with (though I suspect he would not) but, at any rate, Miller
and Marx were the twin fountains for my own first book, _Making Sense of
the Molly Maguires_ (NY: OUP, 1998), which is concerned with class
conflict and ethnic relations in the Pennsylvania coal fields in 1860s
and 1870s, understood in the context of the ongoing socio-economic
transformation of Ireland as well as America. Marx is never mentioned;
but anyone who has read him will make the connections. In explaining
this to my students when I teach the book, I still feel the need to
distinguish 'Marx the Mad Red Doctor' from 'Marx the Sociologist', Marx
as 'Stalin-in-the-making' from 'Marx the Historian', etc.

If these first two works might be described as marxian rather than
Marxist, others are more overt. Anthony Bimba, for example, published
his book _The Molly Maguires_ with International Publishers in the
1930s. He was, I believe, a Lithuanian immigrant and a CP Member (all
that from memory). Bimba heroically overturned the prevailing mythology
of the Molly Maguires as inherently evil killers hounded by virtuous
capitalists, but only by turning it on its head to produce an account of
inherently evil capitalists confronted by virtuous workers. His
over-simple account is of the type often referred to as 'vulgar
Marxism.'

A much more intellectually substantial example of the genre is Eric
Foner's "Class, Ethnicity, and Radicalism in the Gilded Age: The Land
League in Irish-America," originally published in _Marxist Perspectives_
and republished Eric Foner, _Politics and Ideology in the Age of the
Civil War_ (NY: OUP, 1980). Arguing against Tom Brown's thesis that
ethnic nationalism became a means of assimilation into middle-class
respectability, Foner unearthed radical working-class dimensions of
nationalism that could not fit the model. In retrospect, however, Brown
and Foner can be seen as complementary as well as antagonistic: for
Foner, too, ethnic nationalism could lead to assimilation, but on
grounds set by working-class people.

I'm sure there are other American examples, and no doubt British ones.

Kevin Kenny
___________

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish Nurses in Britain 2

The research that Mary Hickman refers to below, as well as being an
MA thesis, was also published as an occasional paper:

Mary Daniels, 'Exile or Opportunity? Irish Nurses and Midwives in
Britain', Occasional Papers of the Institute of Irish Studies, No.5,
University of Liverpool, 1993

I have a copy and I'm sure Liverpool U. would have a copy. The
Institute used to have copies of its occasional papers for sale,
although this one may well be out of print by now.

Elizabeth Malcolm
Melbourne



>From: "Mary J. Hickman"
>Subject: Re: Ir-D Irish Nurses in Britain
>
>
>Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh should also look at Walter, B. (1989) Irish Women

>in London, 2nd edition, London Borough of Ealing - which has a chapter
>on Irish nurses in London. I think Bronwen's book Outsiders Inside on
>Irish women's migration also has material on Irish nurses. The research

>on midwives was done by an MA student at the Institute for Irish
>Studies, Liverpool University in the late 1980s - unfortunately I
>cannot recall her name.
>
>Mary Hickman
>

Professor Elizabeth Malcolm Tel: +61-3-8344 3924
Department of History Fax: +61-3-8344 7894
University of Melbourne email: e.malcolm[at]unimelb.edu.au
Parkville, Victoria
Australia 3010

From: "William Mulligan Jr."
To:
Subject: RE: Ir-D `No Irish' 26

To Richard Jensen... Wait a minute -- earlier you said you found only
one NINA ad total after a massive search. Now, when more ads are found
in a data base you searched you seem to indicate that's not a
contradiction. But, then you also say that all the NINA mentions proved
to be references, not ads -- you might clarify that, because it appears
to be contradicted by your quick acceptance of Casey's finding 31 NINA
ads as valid. Is it one such ad total or one per year, or are there more
out there? I have read your essay several times to make sure I didn't
miss anything and I am
still unconvinced. Your latest post only makes me more skeptical.

Bill Mulligan

From: "michael j. curran"
Subject: Health of the Irish


Greetings from Belfast.

I know the historians have to argue with or without empirical evidence!
Thanks all the same for the lively discussion.

I want to know where I might pick up references, data, sources, or any
materials on the physical and mental health of the Irish in USA,
Australia and Canada - either in the past or in the present. May meet
some of you north Americans at the ACIS conference in June. Thanks again

Michael J. Curran PhD
Irish Diaspora Project
Dept. of Psychology
Aras an Phiarsaigh,
Trinity College
Dublin 2, Ireland
Phone: 0044 2890 839569 (Home)
FAX: 00353 1 6712006

From: Gary Peatling
Subject: Re: Ir-D Marxists on Irish Diaspora 2
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk

Kevin Kenny is not entirely alone: I think he is
correct to cite aspects of Kerby Miller's work as a
very important example of Marxist-influenced or
"marxisant" work on the Irish diaspora. I think this
dimension (and especially the invocation of a
Gramscian model of "hegemony") is clearest in an essay
which Kerby Miller jointly wrote with Bruce Boiling,
'The pauper and the politician' in Arthur Gribben ed
_The great famine and the Irish diaspora_ (1999).

In the context of the Irish diaspora in Britain, there
is a very important debate for anyone interested in
tracing historical connections between Ireland and the evolution of
Marxist thought (and which should thus appeal to Daniel Nieciecki). The
passage in Engels' _The condition of the working class in England_ about
little Ireland has become infamous, but it is usually now cited with
reference to the much-discussed themes of prejudice and race: in some
scholarly work I find Engels cited as supposedly representative of
British ruling-class [!?] attitudes to the Irish in Britain.
If one is to trace the original intentions/context of
Engels' intervention, however, especially from a
Marxist perspective, Engels' key concern is the
significance of the Irish presence in Britain for the
industial revolution and for its political
repercussions. To what extent did the Irish presence facilitate
industrial revolution in Britain, and did it make the political
revolution/class struggle Marx and Engels expected more or less likely?
E.P. Thompson's famous _The making of the English working class_ of
course contains a relevant passage, and more recently there is Jeffrey
Williamson's essay in Swift and Gilley ed _The Irish in Britain_ (1989).
I'm sure there is other literature too which I've forgotten.

Gary Kenneth Peatling

From: Marion Casey
To: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 29

Professor Jensen, please stop saying there is only 1 NINA ad for a
teenage boy. You have missed others; for example, see the NEW YORK
TIMES, 6 August 1874, page 6:

WANTED. -- On a farm, a man, married or single, thoroughly competent as
foreman; he must be thoroughly acquainted with all the usual work
required on an American farm; must have undoubted references as to
capability and honesty; no Irish need apply. Address for a week or ten
days, J.H.P., Gillett, Morris County, N.J.

I should clarify that the 31 ads I found in the New York Times are a
result of a search on the exact phrase "No Irish Need Apply" before
01/10/1900. If you search simply on "No Irish," there are scores of
them, such as this example from 26 June 1895, page 10:

WANTED. -- An experienced nurse for bottle baby; must be able to take
full charge; family in mountain; must be refined; no Irish. Call,
between 9 and 10 o'clock, at 69 West 23rd Street, in store.

Or this example, from 27 May 1853, page 4:

NURSE OR SEAMSTRESS WANTED. -- To go in the country during the summer.
A kind, conscientious and capable Protestant woman who can fill the
place and make herself useful to a lady, can have a good situation, with
a chance to spend the Summer in a quiet and healthy part of the country,
and will be paid the highest wages. No Irish woman will be employed.
Address D., box No. 1,960, lower Post-Office.

The ads are not biased towards women in general nor maids in particular.
And they are not a myth.

Marion R. Casey
Department of History
New York University


- ----- Original Message -----
From: irish-diaspora[at]Bradford.ac.uk
Date: Thursday, March 27, 2003 7:53 am
Subject: Ir-D `No Irish' 29

>
>
> From: "Richard Jensen"
> To:
> Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 27
>
> from Richard Jensen rjensen[at]uic.edu
>
> I found one NINA ad in the NY Times for males (for a teenage boy
> to work
> in a livery stable). Like Dr Casey I did find a few NINA ads for women
> domestics -- and discussed them in detail. NINA ads for men were so
> rare that it is unlikely that one Irishman in 100 ever saw one in the
> 19th century.
>
> When you check the newspaperarchive.com search engine--
> which I did again yesterday-- you find 100 or so NINA "hits"
> involving a
> couple dozen newspapers large and small. I went through the first 80
> and found two ads for domestics (one London, one NYC) and many
> references to the slogan. For example a letter writer in the Newport
> [RI] Daily News, March 11, 1914 said the only NINA signs or ads he
> eversaw applied to domestic servants. More interesting is the use
> of NINA
> in Democratic politics. When the Democrats drew up a local ticket and
> left the Irish off, the press commented it was NINA for the party. In
> 1909 Judge John Goff--an Irishman who was a leading anti-Tammany
> reformer and judge in New York City, gave a speech saying the NINA
> sentiment had died out after the Civil War; he denounced antisemitism.
> Washington Post Feb 15, 1909 The Washington Post May 7, 1905
> refers to a
> recent stage appearance by Miss Kathleen O'Neill, calling her the
> originator of NINA. (Her 1862 song is reproduced in my essay).
>

From: Elizabeth Malcolm
Subject: Re: Ir-D Health of the Irish

Dear Michael,

I don't think there's been much study of the health of the Irish,
physical or mental, in Australia - unlike Britain. (Strange, given
how many Irish doctors there are and always have been in this
country.) I suspect it's an area that could do with a lot more
research.

All I can think of at the moment is an article by Trevor McClaughlin
of Macquarie University, Sydney, on the mental health of Irish women
in 19th-century Australia in his edited collection, 'Irish Women in
Colonial Australia', Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1998.

Plus, there are a few references to the Irish in Stephen Garton,
'Medicine and Madness: a Social History of Insanity in New South
Wales', Sydney: UNSW Press, 1988.

And the Irish also figure in an excellent history of the Melbourne
Women's Hospital, written by a professor who heads the HPS Dept. at
my university and is I gather doing further research on women's
health in Melbourne: Janet McCalman, 'Sex and Suffering: a History of
the Melbourne Royal Women's Hospital, 1856-1996', Melbourne: MUP,
1998.

These are just first thoughts. If anything else comes to mind, I'll
let you know.

Elizabeth

PS. I hope to do some teaching of medical history here sometime in
the future, in conjunction with HPS, and I would certainly then want
to look closely at the Irish.



>From: "michael j. curran"
>Subject: Health of the Irish
>
>
>Greetings from Belfast.
>
>I know the historians have to argue with or without empirical evidence!

>Thanks all the same for the lively discussion.
>
>I want to know where I might pick up references, data, sources, or any
>materials on the physical and mental health of the Irish in USA,
>Australia and Canada - either in the past or in the present. May meet
>some of you north Americans at the ACIS conference in June. Thanks
>again
>
>
------------------------
Dr Elizabeth Malcolm
Gerry Higgins Professor of Irish Studies
Deputy Head
Department of History
University of Melbourne
Parkville, Victoria, 3010
AUSTRALIA

Telephone: +61-3-8344 3924
FAX: +61-3-8344 7894
Email: e.malcolm[at]unimelb.edu.au

From: "Richard Jensen"
To:
Subject: Re: Ir-D `No Irish' 30

Dr Casey has found a second ad for a male -- for a farm foreman in rural
New Jersey in 1874. 2 ads for males in 50 years of a daily newspaper
have now appeared. (one for a boy, one for a farm hand.) Still no
industrial NINA ads--but who knows, another ad may well turn up.

Does Ms Casey still believe the myth that Irish men saw these signs
everywhere they turned? Please tell us. Has she ever seen a relaiable
report of an actual NINA sign? She would be the very first scholar to do
so.

I did not say there were zero newspaper ads. (I was the one who found
the first one.) It's just they were very rare for men and could not have
been the cause of the NINA myth. The evidence is overwhelming that
there was never any significant job discrimination against Irish men.

This is good news for the Irish: they were not being penalized by the
American economy and scholars can now rewrite their history to take out
the victimization myth.

Richard Jensen rjensen[at]uic.edu

ps: NYTimes Jan 9 1855 situation wanted by chambermaid; none but
Protestants need apply. That is, she only wants a Protestant employer.
As my article explained, there were language, religion and
(possible) ethnicity issues involved when maids joined a household.