Question for the Americans

[james_davis_nicoll]

When Irish-Americans go off on rants about the evils of demographic change do you think they are in any way aware that a century ago people making that speech would have been complaining about the Irish?

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Try renting a house in London with an Irish surname and see how long it takes you to run into "no blacks,dogs, Jews or Irish".

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine "no dogs". The level of dogs around London seems remarkably high to me.

And of course they're required on certain tube station escalators :-) .

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

Not in private sector rentals, very hard to find private sector rentals that allow pets.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

How recently did you run into that? (Because I believe it's been strictly illegal since definitely the 1990s and probably the 1970s, although proving discrimination would be the hard part.)

[matgb]

1970s, Race Relations Act was specifically written to stop anti-Irish crap as well as anti-black stuff, hence the English Democrats can win cases against the Royal Armouries for refusing to rent rooms to them as an English organisation &c.

But just because it's illegal doesn't mean it's not happening and hard to prove.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

The one I've noticed recently in the UK is restaurant reservations. Give my name or probably yours, and no problem. Give an Irish name and somehow they "lose" it.

Harder to legislate against that.

But in 1997, in Cambridge, calling flats to rent from the paper -- 100% of the ones I called made appointments for us to see them, but rysmiel got three "Sorry, gone already" in a row and got discouraged. This was on voice alone. (Calling flats *from the paper* seems so old fashioned! So last century! Maybe everything has changed.)

[mollydot.livejournal.com]

Jesus. I thought it was something from long before my timme.

[(Anonymous)]

That's never being a problem for me.

Stephen Shevlin