No Irish Need Apply

My aunts found this sign in a Pennsylvania antique store twenty-five odd years ago. My grandfather loved it. He emigrated from County Sligo to Boston in 1911 and said similar signs were all over the place. Guess he enjoyed showing them what's what. 

This sign has been on display in my aunts' house for years, but I found it particularly poignant now. I've just finished reading John Kelly's The Graves are Walking, a comprehensive history of the Irish Famine and how the famine victims who left Ireland were treated when they arrived in the United States.