Still Waters No Longer Running, Derp.

CramCycle · 18-06-2021 9:33am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Interestingly, nobody has ever been able to produce a single authentic photo of a "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish" sign which is rather strange don't you think?

Really? having seen them my self they definitely existed in pubs in the UK. Not sure how common they were and one landlord claimed it was more of a joke when my mate pointed it out (about 2005). Now my Dad lived in the UK in the 50s through to the 80s, he mentioned the signs (so long before the exhibition of said photo, and not specifically those 6 words) but never took any heed of them, easy to do when your white and you are not in a group. It is entirely possible that in some cases it was a self fulfilling prophecy, where the article went up and then some pubs put up the signs, the ones I remember where distinctly well made ones, carved in wood or printed professionally. The idea similar signs were not in use in Britain is a falsehood though, they may not all have used those six specific words but they certainly had signs saying "No Irish" or "No Blacks" or "No Coloured" and those who lived in those communities can attest to that.

The example which is used in articles etc. is always the same one and a very obvious decades later fake.

I don't agree, there is no proof either way on that photo but regardless, there are other similar photos archived from long before that famous photo came into the public domain and others that are similar in nature and easy to find.

Bannasidhe · 18-06-2021 11:11am

CramCycle wrote: »

Really? having seen them my self they definitely existed in pubs in the UK. Not sure how common they were and one landlord claimed it was more of a joke when my mate pointed it out (about 2005). Now my Dad lived in the UK in the 50s through to the 80s, he mentioned the signs (so long before the exhibition of said photo, and not specifically those 6 words) but never took any heed of them, easy to do when your white and you are not in a group. It is entirely possible that in some cases it was a self fulfilling prophecy, where the article went up and then some pubs put up the signs, the ones I remember where distinctly well made ones, carved in wood or printed professionally. The idea similar signs were not in use in Britain is a falsehood though, they may not all have used those six specific words but they certainly had signs saying "No Irish" or "No Blacks" or "No Coloured" and those who lived in those communities can attest to that.

I don't agree, there is no proof either way on that photo but regardless, there are other similar photos archived from long before that famous photo came into the public domain and others that are similar in nature and easy to find.

There are also ample classified ads going back as far as the 1840s for everything from lodging to domestic work that are "No Irish".

In fact, historically we can trace the beginning of these ads to the mass immigration of the 'lower classes' to industrial town the GB during and after the famine - similar occurs in the US. Prior to the Famine emigration from Ireland was mainly from Ulster Protestants who tended to 'fit' better in terms of culture and language.
"No Blacks" in the UK we can trace to the post WWII rebuilding of the economy when labour was in short supply and the Windrush generation was fed a tissue of lies about being British.

In my time in the UK in the 80s "No Travellers" was common - which Irish people tended to have no issue with until they realised that the type of people who put up such signs couldn't tell the difference between settled Irish and Irish Traveller meaning anyone with a strong Irish accent was banned.

CramCycle · 18-06-2021 1:17pm

Agreed, it took literally 15seconds of googling to find recorded first hand and second hand historical records of such signs and posters in the UK. I mean, all variants of the same thing but they are all easy to find and verify.

Bannasidhe · 18-06-2021 1:28pm

CramCycle wrote: »

Agreed, it took literally 15seconds of googling to find recorded first hand and second hand historical records of such signs and posters in the UK. I mean, all variants of the same thing but they are all easy to find and verify.

Back in 1984 Liz Curtis's Nothing But The Same Old Story ( published by the GLC if memory serves)a wee book tracing Anti-Irish rhetoric/tropes is a very good primer to the whole thing.
Solid, well researched book.

Anyone who tries to deny the existence of both a race theory based institutional anti-Irish bias reflected by an on the streets officially sanctioned discrimination in GB is either historically illiterate, wilfully ignorant, or pushing an agenda.

Hotblack Desiato · 18-06-2021 2:49pm

But that's the thing, we have documentary evidence in newspaper archives of the "no Irish" classified ads (and in the US many others too, no catholics, no jews etc. until astonishingly recently in "respectable" newspapers)

Such a sign displayed in a pub in the 2000s was clearly created years after the supposed era of these signs, as a "joke".

I don't doubt that discriminatory signs existed (is "no dogs" discriminatory? seems thown in there to incite moral outrage by somehow equating black and Irish people with dogs) but where is there a single genuine photo of the supposed canonical example? Like the 800 years of oppression it was created with an agenda in mind.

CramCycle · 21-06-2021 11:57am

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I don't doubt that discriminatory signs existed (is "no dogs" discriminatory? seems thown in there to incite moral outrage by somehow equating black and Irish people with dogs) but where is there a single genuine photo of the supposed canonical example? Like the 800 years of oppression it was created with an agenda in mind.

Plenty of examples, some say Coloured instead of Black, others say Jew or Traveller instead of Irish, some say Children instead of Dogs. Are you saying that because those 6 specific words were not used on each poster that it somehow dilutes it, that "No Coloured" is not as bad as "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish"? Some only have one group, some have more than the three. It is not a canonical example, it is just a well known one and not having every one saying the same thing does not mean that the other posters are not as bad or carry less weight.

Hotblack Desiato · 21-06-2021 12:32pm

CramCycle wrote: »

Are you saying that because those 6 specific words were not used on each poster that it somehow dilutes it, that "No Coloured" is not as bad as "No Dogs, No Blacks, No Irish"?

Putting words in other people's mouths is a pretty low standard of discussion tactic.

smacl · 21-06-2021 3:39pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Well I didn't mean to say that she was definitively not a racist, just that I was not accusing her of being one

Interestingly, nobody has ever been able to produce a single authentic photo of a "no blacks, no dogs, no Irish" sign which is rather strange don't you think?

The example which is used in articles etc. is always the same one and a very obvious decades later fake.

What's your source on the example used being a fake? In the following article in the Guardian Dr Tony Murray
Director, Irish Studies Centre, London Metropolitan University suggests that while the provenance of the photo is uncertain we have no reason to assume it is a fake.

CramCycle · 21-06-2021 4:21pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Putting words in other people's mouths is a pretty low standard of discussion tactic.

That's not what I done, it appeared to be what you implied so I asked the question. You could just say, yes, that is what I meant or no, that's not what I meant, just odd there are so few examples of that phrase word for word.

If you answered yes, I would think, in my opinion, that you missed the point, the meaning is the same in all the examples that are easily found online. If you meant the latter, then yes, it is unusual but not surprising.

Hotblack Desiato · 22-06-2021 2:04pm

Ah yes the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" question.

I'm baffled as to how you can read my posts on this and then put those words to me as if I'd said them and ask me to deny them.

The answer to your question is quite obviously No, discrimination against any group of people on the basis of their racial or ethnic origin is and was wrong.

But there seems to be a victimhood narrative going on here that the Irish had it as bad as Black people, that we were equated with dogs (or maybe even worse, as Irish comes after dogs) which is very very reminiscent of the old 800 years of oppression / MOPE bollocks, as if colonialism, famine, religious oppression etc. didn't happen all over the world.

Yes there was a lot of anti-Irish discrimination in the UK until quite recent years, and still a few such bigots about, but this apparent attempt to construct a hierarchy of victimhood on the basis of very shaky evidence is distasteful.

Hotblack Desiato · 22-06-2021 2:18pm

smacl wrote: »

What's your source on the example used being a fake? In the following article in the Guardian Dr Tony Murray
Director, Irish Studies Centre, London Metropolitan University suggests that while the provenance of the photo is uncertain we have no reason to assume it is a fake.

That's the same picture which always appears and I've read that Guardian page at least once before...

It's drawn in marker which seems rather unlikely to say the least for a genuine 1950s sign.

ohnonotgmail · 22-06-2021 2:22pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

That's the same picture which always appears and I've read that Guardian page at least once before...

It's drawn in marker which seems rather unlikely to say the least for a genuine 1950s sign.

you state that very authoritatively.

Bannasidhe · 22-06-2021 3:37pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Ah yes the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" question.

I'm baffled as to how you can read my posts on this and then put those words to me as if I'd said them and ask me to deny them.

The answer to your question is quite obviously No, discrimination against any group of people on the basis of their racial or ethnic origin is and was wrong.

But there seems to be a victimhood narrative going on here that the Irish had it as bad as Black people, that we were equated with dogs (or maybe even worse, as Irish comes after dogs) which is very very reminiscent of the old 800 years of oppression / MOPE bollocks, as if colonialism, famine, religious oppression etc. didn't happen all over the world.

Yes there was a lot of anti-Irish discrimination in the UK until quite recent years, and still a few such bigots about, but this apparent attempt to construct a hierarchy of victimhood on the basis of very shaky evidence is distasteful.

I don't think anyone is claiming there is a hierarchy of oppression, and conflating this with things like attempts being made to claim the Irish in the US were slaves - if that is what you think people are doing - is also to ignore historical reality.

The fact is that prior to the Windrush Generation the over all population of GB that was of African descent (either from Africa or from a plantation colony) was so extremely small that they were not factored in as a 'threat' to people's livelihood - no one saw them as 'coming ovah 'eah taking awe bleeding jobs sowffink'.
From the 1840s that was very much the way the Irish were viewed.
Starving peasants undercutting already poverty wages.

For 100 years the Irish were the top of GB's dirty foreigners list. And although they were considered a step above the 'Negro' in the fashionable race theories of the day it was a very small step indeed. Images of the Irish poor from the time are very much of the 'white ape' verity.

The thing about the Irish was their sheer numbers - they were in every city, not confined to a small area of London's East End like the Jews.
Plus in the initial stages those who were driven there by starvation and poverty - too poor to even get to the US - were generally not English speakers. They were, quite literally, rural Irish speaking peasants suddenly swarming into urban industrial centres desperate for work.
Their culture, language, and religion were all 'foreign'. They were seen as a threat.

There were acceptable Irish - these were the one's who were more Anglo than the English themselves. Which meant they had been 'civilised'.

From the Establishment's point of view the Irish were a far greater threat as they threatened the Union itself. The fed the trope of the Irish as being childlike, rebellious, in need of a firm (Anglo-Saxon) hand - for their own good - with a big dollop of spare the rod spoil the child.

So yes, there were time periods when the Irish in GB were treated worse than Black people. It's also true that many Irish were happy to punch down when immigration from the W'Indies started.

smacl · 22-06-2021 4:05pm

Bannasidhe wrote: »

The thing about the Irish was their sheer numbers - they were in every city, not confined to a small area of London's East End like the Jews.

The Irish navvy was part of the landscape at one point. Those canals and railways don't build themselves

Bannasidhe · 22-06-2021 5:03pm

smacl wrote: »

The Irish navvy was part of the landscape at one point. Those canals and railways don't build themselves

Yes, their arrival pretty much coincided with the great Victorian infrastructure building boom. They were cheap and disposable labour.

Similar happened in the US with the construction of the railway network.
Irish going west/Chinese going east.
Horrendous conditions, and often racially motivated attacks to add to the overall experience.

Hotblack Desiato · 25-06-2021 12:09am

Bannasidhe wrote: »

and conflating this with things like attempts being made to claim the Irish in the US were slaves - if that is what you think people are doing

Yet another ridiculous strawman.

CramCycle · 26-06-2021 2:29pm

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Ah yes the "have you stopped beating your wife yet" question.

What?!?

I'm baffled as to how you can read my posts on this and then put those words to me as if I'd said them and ask me to deny them.

I didn't, I said you appeared to imply it, and then you went off the wall accusing me of putting words in your mouth.

Yes there was a lot of anti-Irish discrimination in the UK until quite recent years, and still a few such bigots about, but this apparent attempt to construct a hierarchy of victimhood on the basis of very shaky evidence is distasteful.

What?!? No one was trying this. You sound like one of the four yorkshiremen. All the groups mentioned have been discriminated against, to varying levels dependent on time, location etc. I am not attempting to elevate or devalue any of their experiences. You would appear to have been trying to imply that it is being exaggerated or didn't happen. Maybe you weren't but what you wrote can and is being read in this way.

fisgon · 15-08-2021 3:18pm

Some quotes from a Tiktok vid that is doing the rounds (I saw it on whatsapp) - containing Gemma O'D and John Water's plans for a fascist state in Ireland. Finding it difficult to share here, but it really is a most extraordinary slice of homegrown fascism. With a straight face they advocate for the criminalization of all political parties in the country, and generously offer themselves to be our very own Irish autocrats to save us from the evils of democracy. All that's missing is a "Sieg Heil!" (These are all actual quotes from GOD and JW, though they may appear exaggerated.)

"John and I believe that politics has failed".

"If this moment is achieved where the people in Leinster House have no choice but to stand down.....because sufficient numbers will surround the Dail until such time as they leave, and leave permanently".

"And then there is a vaccum, and it is at that point that John and I would be presenting ourselves to be those who remove the architecture of globalism in this country within one year."

"We would begin by making Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, Sinn Fein, An Garda Siochana and the HSE, all of the NGOs that have been promoting the filth and degeneracy all around us, illegal organisations. This has to happen, this has to happen."

"We would be launching a repatriation programme (of immigrants) - because we know that the immigration to our country has been artificially forced upon us by the globalists."

"They (immigrants) are coming in on these vast trucks you see on our roads".