Lace curtain and shanty Irish

Interior of a prosperous American household in 1905, with a lace curtain
"The Patch", an Irish shanty town in Holyoke, Massachusetts, 1850

Lace curtain Irish and shanty Irish are terms that were commonly used in the 19th and 20th centuries to categorize Irish people, particularly Irish Americans, by social class. The "lace curtain Irish" were those who were well off, while the "shanty Irish" were the poor, who were presumed to live in shanties, or roughly built cabins.[1]

Neither term was complimentary. Aside from financial status, the term "lace curtain Irish" connoted pretentiousness and social climbing, while the "shanty Irish" were stereotyped as feckless and ignorant.[2] As lace curtains became commonplace in Irish-American working-class homes, "lace curtain" was still used in a metaphorical, and often pejorative, sense. In the early 20th century, James Michael Curley, a famously populist Boston politician who was called "mayor of the poor", used the term "cut glass Irish" to mock the Irish-American middle class, but the term did not catch on.[3] The term “two-toilet Irish” has also been used as a synonym for lace curtain Irish.[4]

Irish Americans who prospered or married well could go from "shanty Irish" to "lace curtain Irish", and wealthy socialites could have shanty Irish roots.[2] John F. Kennedy, for example, is considered "lace curtain" even though his great-grandparents were working-class Irish immigrants.[5]

  1. ^ Hutson, Arthur E. (February 1947). "Gaelic Loan-Words in American". American Speech. 22 (1): 18–23. doi:10.2307/487372. JSTOR 487372.
  2. ^ a b Shannon, William V. (1989). The American Irish: A Political and Social Portrait. University of Massachusetts Press. p. 142. ISBN 9780870236891.
  3. ^ Dallek, Robert (2004). John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life 1917-1963. Penguin. p. 25. ISBN 9780141925820.
  4. ^ Reardon, Nancy (March 17, 2008). "'Lace curtain' Irish are now the norm". The Patriot Ledger. Retrieved July 16, 2022. In the 1930s and 1940s, the first cycle of Irish families moved from Boston and its outskirts down to the South Shore. They were called "lace-curtain Irish" or "two-toilet Irish."
  5. ^ Smith, Robert C. (2013). John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and the Politics of Ethnic Incorporation and Avoidance. SUNY Press. p. 39. ISBN 9781438445618.