The stereotype of the difficult domestic worker—obstinate, ignorant, temperamental, morally corrupt—existed on both sides of the Atlantic, but when linked to the Irish, it almost always had to do with implied ties to Catholicism.

(Some percentage of elitist conspiracy theorists—and there were plenty—believed that Irish servants were literally spies for the Pope.)

The grim admonition No Irish Need Apply was, for prospective Protestant employers, at once a racist epithet and a religious rebuke.

A more benevolent view held that the Irish were cheerful and good-natured, possessing, as one writer suggested, the merit of good intentions.

Still, this toxic and enduring tension—employers craving loyalty, employees craving liberty—led to a stalemate that would become known, for generations, as the servant problem.