‘No Irish need apply’. The now infamous Gumtree ad was revealed this week to be have been posted by a man from Northern Ireland, or was he from England? Either way, his insensitivity has caused not only furore within the Irish community, both here and in Australia, but with local Australian authorities too.

Despite the perpetrator not being Australian, the official response from the Australian government has been both measured and extremely mature.

Fortunately, the unofficial response from the blogosphere has not been so diplomatic. On the message board of one Australian news outlet readers, rational and irrational alike, debated the merits of the ad with undignified aplomb.

“I’m pretty sure they do exactly the same in Ireland,” said a reader named Unions Smell. “But their jobs state NO POLISH workers” Ha! As if the Irish people had jobs to advertise!

“You see ads in the paper all the time from indigenous organizations stating applicants must be of a certain descent,” whined Keg from Perth. “How can they get away with that,” Hmmm. Yes, because if there’s one thing that the aboriginal population, subjected to generations of institutional racism, don’t deserve, its help getting decent work.

One unnamed reader, wanting to import politics into the argument, blamed the left for the entire kerfuffle. “..let business people get on with doing what they do without you socialists pushing your nose into everything.You’re being separatist calling people racist,” he complained, while also revealing the previously unknown plan of the anti-racists to establish a republic of their own. That, or he hasn’t quite grasped the meaning of the word ‘separatist’.

Not all readers were lending their implicit, or indeed explicit, support to the maligned employer. One reader tried to be a bit more conciliatory when it came to Irish-Aussie relations. “Australia has a proud Irish heritage,” said Jim from Warnbro. “This ad should have read ‘no tinkers’. Tinkers are as despised in Ireland as they are here”. So there you have it. The answer to bigotry is more bigotry. What an eye-opener.

Finally, one reader, unaffected by the maelstrom of racially charged comments around him, said this; “Irish women are sexy and very hospitable. I want to see more coming here”. If that’s not a comment on how love, or rather sex, conquers all then I’m not sure what is.