During the Nineteenth Century and specifically following the Great Famine, 'dark', 'hairy', 'odious', 'simian', 'ugly' and worse, became common terms used to describe the Irish in America (1). Certainly, during the same period and well into the Twentieth Century, the Irish were often portrayed in English political cartoons as not only ugly subhumans but also hopeless and stupid. In his review of Liz Curtis' Nothing But the Same Old Story: The Roots of anti-Irish racsim, John Darby referred to a notorious cartoon by JAK published in the Evening Standard in 1981, which presented a mock movie poster entitled 'Showing Now: the Ultimate in Psychopathic Horror The Irish XXX'. Although purporting to be a commentary on the latest troubles of that time, it was interpreted as a continuation of a tradition of representing the Irish as inherently violent (2). This raises the intriguing question then: have the Irish historically been the victims of racism?
Bryan Fanning has argued that racism as a concept has 'always drawn on the dominant paradigms of knowledge and truth'. He proposed that while in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century racism largely relied on assumptions of racial superiority, increasingly there has been a shift in rationale towards arguments based around the necessity of exclusion to preserve cultural purity (3). If nothing else then, this suggests that racism is a malleable concept. In contrast, Amy Martin has perhaps provided a more nuanced view of traditional racism and its philosophical foundations suggesting that there were in fact two strains: one was indeed 'epidermal' in nature and the other was reliant on a 'more fluid understanding of racial hierarchy'. Indeed, this might explain Charles Kingsley's reference in a letter to his wife about witnessing 'human chimpanzees' on a visit to Ireland! This is perhaps an indication that British racism in the Victorian period was based less around a bias for 'whiteness' and relied more heavily on a complex, hierarchy of perceived physical and cultural traits (4). But does that mean that the idea that the Irish have been victims of active racial discrimination has merit?
To some extent negative perceptions of the Irish were driven by the displacement triggered by the famine. The Great Famine of the 1840s triggered a Malthusian response from the British that sought to avoid the effort and cost involved in any relief by blaming the victims with accusations of 'indolence and backwardness' (5). Dale T. Knobel, who wrote Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America in 1985, later noted that of the forty immigrant ships arriving in New York Harbour daily by 1851, most were carrying Irish immigrants; therefore established Americans were very conscious of both their numbers and their 'haggard' presentation on arrival (6). At the time, American nativists were prone to attributing their condition on arrival to their nature rather than their experiences. Such nativists were defined by Knobel as settled Americans with anxieties concerning a national identity during a period of great economic and demographic change who tended to a convenient scapegoat for their varied problems in migrant populations. Among the subjects for derision were their religion, their impact on the labour market, even their politics. Many Irish were accused of undermining the labour market for working for low wages. They were also collectively known to support the then current pro-slavery platform of the Democratic Party. At the same time, the American nativists were concerned to some extent with all migrant groups including the Chinese. As a result, fraternal organisations tended to limit their membership to American born - although it would be interesting to know what percentage of their current membership were themselves descendants of earlier Irish migrants! (7)
Regardless, the Irish were probably historically treated worst of all in their own land under Norman, English and later British rule. The Norman invasion of Ireland was initiated because of an indigenous civil war in the 12th Century and only eventually sanctioned by Henry II on account of political rather than truly colonial motives. The Statutes of Kilkenny that were enacted in 1366, were the foundation of a more 'defensive colonial policy' adopted by the government of Edward III. While they provided practical measures to ensure peace and trade, they were also a vehicle of segregation. The settler population were forbidden to form alliances with the natives through marriage or fostering, speak the Irish language or adopt Irish customs. The native Irish were themselves forbidden to speak Gaelic around the settlers and excluded from ecclesiastical positions. Regardless of whether they were intentioned as defensive or derogatory, they were J. C. Beckett's admission 'aimed at setting a permanent barrier between the two races in Ireland.' Ultimately though - despite their cruelty - the statutes were based on cultural differences and political interests rather than any obvious notions of racism. After all, this form of hierarchical, feudal society was the 'norm' in Europe; the native populations of England were themselves ruled by the Normans. Even so, widespread assimilation occurred in both England and Ireland and the Lordship of Ireland was increasingly left to its own devices until the middle Tudor period (8).
Resistance against colonialism also ironically provided a basis for the development of a view that the Irish were inherently troublesome (9). The worst excesses of the plantation system were to some extent an opportunistic response by the English to the Flight of the Earls in 1607. The corrupt system of confiscation that developed was likely fueled again by a defensive colonial policy which feared a coalition of the 'old English' (ie. the descendants of Norman invaders) and the natives. The confiscations inevitably led to the uprising in 1641. The English response was itself brutal and was largely justified by exaggerated claims of massacres of Protestants. Once English authority has been fully reasserted, the Irish Parliament of 1697 instituted laws that were designed to be specifically degrading to Catholics, which incorporated virtually the entirety of the native population. Catholics were excluded from Parliament, military service, civil service, municipal corporations and the legal profession. Alterations to laws relating to land ownership and inheritance were designed to make it virtually impossible for Catholics to accumulate land. Many of the 'old English' were also Catholic though, and were also impacted, probably more by the restrictions on educating their children abroad and change to rules of inheritance which encouraged conversions. These discriminatory laws were not repealed until 1829. These new laws were clearly an official strategy to deprive the native Irish population of any political power (10). The conflicts in Ireland from 1641 have traditionally been framed within the wider contests between Protestants and Catholics or Loyalists and Parliamentarians rather than one that on the ground may have been for the participants, more essentially between colonisers and natives.
From 1641 then, the Irish character was characterised as inherently treacherous and violent. The thousands of Irish that were sold into Carribean slavery under Cromwell after the defeat of the rebellion in 1649 were by his own admission meant to serve as examples to the rest of the native population and not treated so because of their 'race'. (11). Later conflicts appeared to consolidate the treacherous and violent characterisation of the Irish which helped justify their heavy handed responses. Two attempted revolutions in 1798 and 1803 led to the institution of martial law. (12) The British reaction to the Easter uprising in 1916 for instance involved imposing martial law across Ireland although most resistance was centred around Dublin. The arbitrary British reprisals against the Irish during the War for Independence included such atrocities as the sacking of Balbriggan and the burning of Cork. (13) This pattern of brutality demonstrated a dogged colonial mindset rather than a racist agenda. General Nevil Macready who accepted Irish Command in 1920 and was apparently more sensitive towards the Irish situation than most of his counterparts, reportedly hated the Irish 'with a depth deeper than the sea and more violent than that which I feel against the Boche.' (14) However, the Victorian and Edwardians tended to emphasise their Anglo-Saxon heritage at the expense of their Celtic, Roman and Scandanavian roots. (15) The 'Boche' of the day were likely despised because they represented a rival empire with which the Commonwealth had recently been at war, not from sense of racial superiority. It had been widely recognised by the British, that among the wider population of Ireland in 1916 there had been sympathy with the allied cause and most were content to wait to the end of hostilities before terminating the legislative union. The impatience and poor judgment of a small number of separatists (republicans, socialists and Sinn Fein) was not claimed to be proof of some kind of inherent racial propensity for treachery. (16)
The Australian colonial experience for the Irish raises the same caveats to the proposition. Just as in the United States, there were a plethora of Nineteenth Century job advertisements evident in Australian colonial newspapers specifying that the Irish need not apply! (17) And while there is some evidence that the Celtic ritual practice of Halloween was suppressed in the Australian colonies, it has been noted that both the St. Patrick's and St. Valentine's feast day celebrations were better accepted on account of their Christian rather than pagan origins. (18) Certainly, there was discrimination, but it often appears to have emanated from a sectarian rather than a racial basis. Until the middle of the Twentieth Century at least, Australia was regarded as homogenous Anglo-Saxon society. The adoption of the term 'Anglo-Celtic' has only become evident in response to recent lobbying by descendants of Irish and Scottish migrants who desired recognition for their ancestors' contribution to the nation's cultural development. But there is little or no evidence that this Celtic amnesia was motivated by anything other than an official desire to cultivate a more homogenous society. It may be significant to note however that the shift from Australia identifying as an 'Anglo' to an 'Anglo-Celtic' society though followed the upsurge of non-British emigration after 1945. (19)
Ironically in recent decades, Ireland itself has demonstrated increasing opposition to migrants, particularly asylum seekers. Bryan Fanning has argued that while this populism has great 'political currency' it is nevertheless 'grounded in racism and xenophobia'. Like the objections the American nativists expressed to Irish immigration in the Nineteenth Century, this resistance Fanning explains 'provides exceedingly simple explanations for complex societal problems' (20).
Therefore, while the Irish were arguably vilified and discriminated against during the Nineteenth and into the Twentieth Centuries it should not be considered to have been a form of racism. In a colonial context, their 'whiteness' likely allowed for a swifter assimilation into European colonial societies than non-white immigrants. There were also major structural differences, both legislative and cultural, that would have mitigated their experiences; for instance, however equal their treatment with their black counterparts in the Caribbean, they were not assigned to become a kind of hereditary property in perpetuity. Furthermore, their typically pro-slavery stance during the Nineteenth Century was actually evidence of the privilege of suffrage, a liberty not universally enjoyed at the time by the Afro-American population. The subjugation of Ireland by the Normans, English and later British, occurred over several centuries. The conflicts that ensued have probably been correctly framed by historians as sectarian or native resistance movements rather than having been explained by racism. Subsequent to the Great Famine at least, it's clear that the Irish experienced prolonged periods of active discrimination in the New World by nativists but perhaps never as extreme as that inflicted by foreign invaders in their own occupied country. Ironically, there are some 'nativist' Irish voices today that could be accused of expressing anti-migrant sentiments that might be more accurately explained by racism.
- Colin Mallett, 17 March 2026.
Endnotes
(1) Dale T. Knobel, 'Celtic Exodus: The Famine Irish, Ethnic Stereotypes, and the Cultivation of American Racial Nationalism', Radharc, 2001, 2:3-25, p. 5, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122316, accessed 17 March 2025.
(2) John Darby, 'The Problem of English Racism', Fortnight, 1984, 211:19-19, p. 19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25547631, accessed 17 March 2025.
(3) Bryan Fanning, 'The Political Currency of Irish Racism: 1997-2002', Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 2002, 364(91):319-27, p. 320, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30095578, accessed 17 March 2025.
(4) Amy E. Martin, 'Victorian Ireland: Race and the Category of the Human', Victorian Review, 2014, 1(40): 52-7, p. 52, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24497037, accessed 17 March 2025.
(5) Martin, "Victorian Ireland', p. 53.
(6) Knobel, 'Celtic Exodus', pp. 3-4.
(7) Kevin Kenny, 'Race, Labor, and Nativism: A Response to Dale T. Knobel', Radharc, 2001, 2:27-33, pp. 27-30, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122317 accessed on 17 March 2025.
(8) J. C. Beckett, A Short History of Ireland, Cressant Library, Sydney, 1986, pp. 16, 27, 31-6.
(9) Martin, "Victorian Ireland', p. 53.
(10) Beckett, Short History, pp. 62, 64-5, 71-5, 92-3, 127.
(11) It must be acknowledged as John Donoghue argues that Atlantic slavery based on race was in fact an historical abberation. See: John Donaghue, 'The Curse of Cromwell: revisting the Irish slavery debate', History Ireland, 2017, 4(25):24-8, pp. 24-5, http://www.jstor.org/stable/90014565, accessed on 19 March 2025. This view is reinforced by the trade in a million European slaves among the Ottoman Barbary states from the Seventeenth Century the early Nineteenth Century. Refer to: Giles Milton, White Gold, Hodder and Stoughton, 2005, passim.
(12) Charles Townshend, ' Martial Law: legal and administrative problems of civil emergency in Britain and the Empire, 1800-1940', The Historical Journal, 1982, 1(25):167-95, p. 167, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638811, accessed 21 March 2025.
(13) M. A. Doherty, 'Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War', Irish Historical Studies, 2000 126(32):217-31, p. 228, http://www.jstor.org/stable/300006997, accessed 21 March 2025; Martin Frederick Seedorf, 'The Lloyd George Government and the Strickland Report on the burning of Cork, 1920', Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies', 1972, 2(4):59-66, pp. 59-60, https:doi.org./10.2307/4048122, accessed 21 March 2025.
(14) Ian Roxborough, '6. The Military: The mutual determination of strategy of Ireland, 1912-1921', in Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged, Jan Willem Duyvendak & James M. Jasper (eds), Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2015, pp. 142-4, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt.196315k.9., accessed 21 March 2025.
(15) Joanne Parker, '6. The Victorians, the Dark Ages and the English National Identity', in The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Low Countries, pp. 132-3, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004241862_088, accessed 11 August 2025.
(16) Beckett, Short History, pp. 151-2. Ultimatley, sixteen of the insurgents were tried and shot.
(17) A phrase search for 'No Irish Need Apply' on the digitisation resource TROVE in the category of Newspapers and Gazettes produces 1, 181 results: https://trove.nla.gov.au/search/advanced/category/newspapers?keyword.phrase=No%20Irish%20Need%20Apply&startPos=0&sortBy=dateAsc The source newspapers cover the period from early settlement to the 1950s: the earliest example is from 1832 and the most recent from 1953. See: "English Wants', Launceston Advertiser (Tasmania), 18 January 1832, p 23, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84775136, accessed 19 March 2025 & 'Irish insulted', Tribune (Sydney), 25 February 1953, p 9, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article212468776, accessed 19 March 2025.
(18) Colin Mallett, 'Halloween in Australia', The Write Side of History blog, 29 October 2022, https://thewrite5ideofhistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/halloween-in-australia.html, accessed 19 March 2025.
(19) Miriam Dixson, The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the present, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999, p. 9.
(20) Fanning, 'Irish Racism', p. 319.
Figures and Illustrations
(i) Nicol, Erskine, 1825-1904. An Irishman Looks at a Poster Advertising Voyages to New York and Resolves to Emigrate. Coloured Lithograph after E. Nicol, ca. 1840/1860. 1 print : lithograph, with watercolour, [not after 1867]. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24750461, accessed 19 March 2025.
(ii) Heath, William, 1795-1840. Irish Emigrants in America: A Woman with Two Children, and a Man Sitting Outside an Inn Smoking a Pipe. Coloured Etching after William Heath. 1 print : etching. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24885469, accessed 19 March 2025.
(iv) A Well-Dressed Black Couple in New York City Are Being Offered a Coat by a Poor Irish Immigrant Outside a Laundry. Coloured Lithograph. 1 print : lithograph, with watercolour, 1800-1899. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24885523, accessed 19 March 2025.
(v) Unknown, Author. Advertisement for a nanny that appeared in the Boston Transcript in 1868, stating "Positively no Irish need apply." Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:No_Irish_Need_Apply.jpg#Licensing. Reprinted in "A Journey Through Boston Irish History" by Dennis P. Ryan, Arcadia Publishing, 1999, accessed 19 March 2025.
(vi) Leech, John, 1817-1864. A Potato Shaking Hands with Edward Jenner, Claiming Him as a Fellow Vaccinator. Watercolour by John Leech. 1 drawing : watercolour, with pen and brown ink, [between 1800 and 1899]. Wellcome Collection, JSTOR, https://jstor.org/stable/community.24742788, accessed 19 March 2025.
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
Launceston Advertiser (Tasmania)
Tribune (Sydney)
Secondary Sources:
Beckett, J. C. A Short History of Ireland, Cressant Library, Sydney, 1986.
Darby, John, 'The Problem of English Racism', Fortnight, 1984, 211:19-19, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25547631.
Dixson, Miriam, The Imaginary Australian: Anglo-Celts and Identity, 1788 to the present, UNSW Press, Sydney, 1999.
Doherty, M. A., 'Kevin Barry and the Anglo-Irish Propaganda War', Irish Historical Studies, 2000 126(32):217-31, http://www.jstor.org/stable/300006997.
Donaghue, John, 'The Curse of Cromwell: revisting the Irish slavery debate', History Ireland, 2017, 4(25):24-8, http://www.jstor.org/stable/90014565.
Fanning, Bryan, 'The Political Currency of Irish Racism: 1997-2002', Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, 2002, 364(91):319-27, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30095578.
Kenny, Kenny, 'Race, Labor, and Nativism: A Response to Dale T. Knobel', Radharc, 2001, 2:27-33, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122317.
Knobel, Dale T., 'Celtic Exodus: The Famine Irish, Ethnic Stereotypes, and the Cultivation of American Racial Nationalism', Radharc, 2001, 2:3-25, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25122316.
Mallett, Colin, 'Halloween in Australia', The Write Side of History blog, 29 October 2022, https://thewrite5ideofhistory.blogspot.com/2022/10/halloween-in-australia.html.
Milton, Giles, White Gold, Hodder and Stoughton, 2005.
Parker, Joanne, '6. The Victorians, the Dark Ages and English National Identity', in The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Britain and the Low Countries, Hugh Dunthorne & Michael Wintle (eds), Brill, Netherlands, 2013, pp. 133-50, https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004241862_008.
Roxborough, Ian, '6. The Military: The mutual determination of strategy of Ireland, 1912-1921', in Breaking Down the State: Protestors Engaged, Jan Willem Duyvendak & James M. Jasper (eds), Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2015, pp. 133-56, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638811.
Seedorf, Martin Frederick, 'The Lloyd George Government and the Strickland Report on the burning of Cork, 1920', Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, 1972, 2(4):59-66, https:doi.org./10.2307/4048122.
Townshend, Charles, ' Martial Law: legal and administrative problems of civil emergency in Britain and the Empire, 1800-1940', The Historical Journal, 1982, 1(25):167-95, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638811.
Online Sources:
Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, accessed 2 April 2025.
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Many thanx to Kylie for always proofreading my scribbles!
