West End Letters: Enda Delaney | The Irish in Post-War Britain

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 2 October 2009

Above jibes

• “No Irish need apply” – a final word?
I agreed with Peter Berresford Ellis’s critique of Enda Delaney’s The Irish in Post-War Britain (Review, August 14).
Enda Delaney was not part of the Irish diaspora. He was sheltered in the lofty air of academia.
The Irish response to the “Vacancies, no Irish need apply” placards hung outside shops, slum landlords’ premises and factories was thus:
“No Irish need apply”.
The hand that wrote it wrote it well
For the same is writ
on the gates of hell,
“No Irish need apply!”
We rose above the racists jibes, taunts and discrimination, got on with our work in hospitals, building sites and in domestic or catering service to build a better life in what we considered England to be, the new Jerusalem.
Doris Daly, N1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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