Britannia Hotels has 61 properties across the U.K and has been called ‘Britain’s worst hotel chain’. Their Pontins brand includes 6 resorts.
An internal memo from Pontins resorts leaked showing that the chain made an effort to avoid accepting bookings from people with Irish surnames, or who booked by phone with Irish accents. They even cancelled bookings that made it through in error.
Leaked Pontins Memo
Please be aware that several guests are unwelcome at Pontins. However, some of these will still try and book – especially during school holidays. We have been informed by our Operations Director that we do not want these guests on our parks. Please watch out for the following names for any future bookings.
Irish guests were deemed “undesirable” according to the memo which was posted to the chain’s intranet site. Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission investigated and found them in violation of the country’s Equality Act. There were (40) specific names banned from the properties including:
Boylan, Boyle, Carney, Carr, Cash, Connors, Corcoran, Delaney, Doherty, Dorran, Gallagher, Horan, Keefe, Kell, Leahy, Lee, MacLaughlin, McAlwick, McCully, McDonagh, McGinley, McGinn, McGuiness, McHarg, McLaughan, McMahon, Millighan, Mongans, Murphy, Nolan, O’Brien, O’Connell, O’Donnell, O’Donoghue, O’Mahoney, O’Reilly, Sheriadan, Stokes, Walch, Ward.
…The undated memo, published in a story in the UK “i” newspaper, is illustrated by a drawing of a wizard in a cloak, holding wands in both hands, with the caption: “You shall not pass!”
The chain has entered into an agreement with the British government “to run annual equality and diversity staff training courses” and will monitor compliance for 12 months. In some ways this is an odd resolution because it doesn’t appear to be staff who lacked training, it was a directive from management.
In Blazing Saddles the white townspeople of Rock Ridge finally have to decide whether to grant land and equal rights and land to Asian and African American railroad workers – to unite against a common enemy – and finally overcome most of their prejudices. They agree, but will only taken it so far. As one town leader puts it, “But we don’t want the Irish!”
It seems that there are still prejudices that are considered more acceptable in business environments than others.
(HT: Your Mileage May Vary)
It comes from the top. See: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/08/world/meghan-harry-oprah-interview
I’m Asian and my surname is on the list… In light of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s bombshell interview, wonder which shoe is the next to drop… or however many shoes are left…
@Gary, love the way you call Pontins holiday camps, as they were and were more correctly called, “resorts”. Which tells me you have no concept of this uniquely British — hmmm — holiday option. Their main competitor is/was Butlins (www.butlins.com), who, back in the day, was colloquially known as Butlitz. Should tell you what you need to know.
I know this, as a spotty 16 YO, I stayed at Butlitz Minehead. I am just surprised that Butlitz does not have a similar list to Pontins, and that my name does still not appear.
To be fair, being banned from Pontins is a blessing in disguise
Glad to see we McGillicuddy’s are still okay!
The story looks a bit suspect. If you were trying to keep out all Irish people, how would you have a list that doesn’t include a single Fitz- anything? Flynn?
There’s probably a 10% overlap between this list and the 50 most common Irish names.
The real story could be what some sources are reporting, that they were trying to keep out “travelers”, which word the Irish use to mean gypsy. I wonder what the overlap between these names and traveler family names is.
Or they have had specific bad experiences with particular people on that list, who then booked their family vacation the next year under a different family member’s name.
I realized I missed something. From a US perspective, where everyone is a victim and discriminated against, I understand the reaction. But I think the conclusion is faulty.
The list of names gives the facts away. I will bet these names belong to what are known in the UK as “Travellers”. They are itinerant caravan and van dwellers who blight public spaces.
For example, they break into city parks and live there en masse until it’s time to move on. Bad behvior and crime is de rigeur. Several city parks around my UK place have Court Orders at the gates banning entry to lists of people, whose names look a lot like the Pontins list.
So, likely this isn’t racism against the Irish, it’s common sense to protect Pontins and its other customers from group of hooligans.
EG: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/group-of-irish-travellers-accused-of-chaos-at-german-town-1.2762220
As soon as I saw that second paragraph, I immediately thought of that line from Blazing Saddles.
Good to see that great minds think alike, Gary! lol
Yes, Wolfie and SeanNY2 are right- this is a list of Mincéirí surnames, not the most common Irish surnames. Where they are wrong is it’s just as wrong to discriminate against Travellers as it is the Irish. You’d hope that people who experienced bias against them would have some solidarity against other oppressed classes. But often the minorities, particularly the Irish, are some of the most racist.
John Carr says: “Yes, Wolfie and SeanNY2 are right- this is a list of Mincéirí surnames, not the most common Irish surnames. Where they are wrong is it’s just as wrong to discriminate against Travellers as it is the Irish. You’d hope that people who experienced bias against them would have some solidarity against other oppressed classes. But often the minorities, particularly the Irish, are some of the most racist.”
John Carr, when you have a minute you might apologize to me and to Irish people generally for your false accusation. I never said any such thing and I would not say it because I don’t believe it. There’s a word for attributing malice to an entire people based on the behavior of isolated individuals. You might want to look it up.
I think the wizard is holding a sword and a staff. Haven’t you watched or read the LOTR? The “You Shall Not Pass” scene?
The reality is equality is a myth. Different groups of people are going to behave different on average. If pit bulls are different than Poodles due to their genes (breeding), the same applies to humans. There is a reason for this. It’s not some arbitrary or capricious decision. This chain probably has had terrible experiences with a disproportionate amount of Irish guests. Are they too loud? Do they not control their alcohol well enough? Do they disproportionately get in to fights compared to Anglo Saxon/jute guests? Who knows. Management isn’t going to concern themselves with this unless this group disproportionately presented specific and unique problems compared to the rest. Certainly, there are other groups more deserving of a ban given those groups commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime everywhere they are in the entire world and disproportionately practice low culture.
The lesson here is never put things down on paper (commit them to memory) and realize it is hard to keep things mum when multiple staff across multiple hotels are privy to the management request. It may have been more advantageous in the long run to change their marketing or change their hotel (rates/amenities) specifically targeted to disincentivize and repel the Irish.
I’m not a fan of the Irish myself, but I wouldn’t mind marrying an honorable Irish girl. At the end of the day, our faces are very similar and having Irish kids is probably the least worst thing today given the fall of mainstream society.
Did it happen to be that the British persons involved in this blacklisting of a bunch of Irish names may have been ethnic minorities themselves? Perhaps some immigrant types to the UK didn’t realize how common those Irish names are? Either way, there continues to be anti-Irish prejudice in various parts of the UK to this day.
The British royal family and its supportive lapdogs in the British public are in a way protecting that alleged child abuser Prince Andrew who has been allowed privileges and protections as a non-working royal even as his US-residing prince of a nephew’s American wife is made into “the bad girl”; but that’s all a sideshow with a relic institution from a country that has on-going issues with racism from top to bottom.
The Jackson W person above continues to contribute his view from the idiotic “white supremacist” view to VFTW.
SeanNY2 has stood up for racism and racism from Donald Trump that it’s interesting to see him seek out an apology for being associated with racism.
And, yes, racism against “the Travellers” from Ireland or elsewhere is also duly illegal where it is — whether or not it comes from the Irish or Irish-Americans.
@John Carr, around here we ignore GUWonder, so don’t let his attempt to enter this discussion dissuade you from doing what is right.
SeanNY2 is playing more from his Lord Trump’s playbook than the Biden playbook.
Ignoring a person by calling attention to the person is more like the behavior of SeanNY2’s Lord Trump than it is the behavior of the new guy who trumped his Lord Trump for POTUS.