tell me about the "Lace Irish"?

Question

they were or are a community in ireland. Not Irish Lace. The Lace Irish.

Answer 1

Irish immigration notes
c. class division in Irish community 1.middle class-"lace curtain" Irish
2.working class--"shanty Irish" a. stayed in ghettos b. remained culturally intact ...
facstaff.uww.edu/mohanp/ethniclect5.html
http://facstaff.uww.edu/mohanp/ethnic-sp07.html

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/new_hibernia_review/v006/6.2williams_w.html
By chance more than a century later, Bridget Connelly, who grew up in Graceville, discovers her Connemara past. As Connelly uncovers the deliberately suppressed history of her family's emigration, she exposes an old scandal that surrounded the settling of the land around Graceville, one that pitted Masons, Protestants, Germans, and Yankees against Irish Catholics--and one that set lace-curtain Irish against the Connemara paupers. She also learns of an archbishop who was, according to farmer lore, "worse than Jesse James."
http://www.borealisbooks.org/books/0873514491.htm
Before Cermak, the Democratic party in Cook County was run by the "Lace Curtain" Irish, who generally despised everyone who wasn't "Lace Curtain",
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Cermak
Hope this helps
Anna

Answer 2

Yes, Anna has it. It was part of a group of terms used by those who those who believed they were their "betters" to divide the Irish into classes. I can remember being told (please forgive me) " Lace curtain Irish, the curtains may be white, but they live like pigs inside." There were also Shanty Irish, Pigs in the pantry Irish and a few Waterford Irish.

It is a term I haven't heard in a very long time.

Answer 3

We must not have them in Northern Ireland