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1828 New York Evening Post job ads, one for a cook ending To save trouble no Irish need apply

No Irish Need Apply: Were the Signs Real? What the Old Newspapers Show

In 2002 a retired history professor called the ‘No Irish Need Apply’ signs a myth. In 2015 a 14-year-old went through the old newspapers and found dozens of ads, many for men’s jobs. Here’s the whole debate: where the phrase started, who it targeted, the 1860s songs, the Butte protest of 1909, Britain’s ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ row, and what the evidence really shows.

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Illustration from William Carleton's 1843 story The Hedge School: a schoolmaster in a top hat grips a pupil by the collar in a crowded cabin classroom

Ireland’s Hedge Schools: The Penal Laws, the Poet-Teachers and the Myths

Under the Penal Laws, a Catholic who taught school in Ireland risked a £20 fine and three months in prison. The hedge schools kept going anyway. Here’s what they really were, where they met (mostly not under hedges), what they taught, how parents paid in turf and butter, the poets who taught in them, and how they faded after 1831.

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Harper's Weekly 1874 engraving of emigrants with bundles and baskets crowding the quay at Queenstown before sailing for New York

The American Wake: Ireland’s All-Night Farewell for Emigrants to America

Before a son or daughter left for America, families in rural Ireland held an American wake: a night of music, dancing and drink that ended in keening before dawn. Here’s what happened on the night, the convoy to the crossroads and the station, the ports, the letters and money that followed, how many ever came home, and how to find your own emigrant ancestor.

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