Was It Like This for the Irish?

Gareth Pierce, the British lawyer who has acted on behalf of wrongfully-accused Irish living in the UK, is the author of a wonderful article in the latest London Review of Books, issue of 10 April 2008, p. 3. The article has been reproduced at: http://www.ukwatch.net/article/was_it_like_this_for_the_irish.
She talks about all of the anti-Muslim measures and the general mood in Britain, and asks whether this is what the Irish experienced in the 1970s and 1980s.