Gene Healy speculates about a certain strain of what he calls “McLibertarians” — Irish-American libertarians influenced by the Irish people’s experience with brutality and repression at the hands of, well, everyone to have a deeply engrained enmity toward the state.

Nice story. It might even be true. The Irish-American experience is as good an example of good, old fashioned collectivism as you’ll find. From the “Gangs of New York”-era racism and blood feuds to the Irish domination of machine politics (and its major beneficiaries, firefighters and police officers) in major cities like Boston, New York and Chicago, it’s just one long tale of getting ahead by getting in good with the government.

And the homeland ain’t so hot, either. They’ve been fighting for decades over Northern Ireland, essentially in a contest to see which side can force its religion down the other’s throat. Hardly a libertarian sentiment. I’m an O’Reilly. I’m a libertarian. But I’m not going to let sentiment get in the way of reality here. It’s much likelier that white men in America are much more predisposed (though still by a far margin mostly indisposed) toward to the ideas of freedom. That explains a lot more than Irishness.

By the way, at least one historian says the “No Irish Need Apply” thing has been blown way out of proportion, latched onto by Irish-Americans eager to claim some victimhood and overlook the nasty legacy of Irish involvement in American political history.