You make an excellent point.
Those who were trying to get ahead in their profession were faced with stiff competition.
Make no bones about it, success requires even higher skullsets.
Everybody already knows that the Irish are a quiet, sober, cerebral lot.
Yeah, sober Irish good one. My Irish ancestors, like so many of my ancestors, got run out of town in their homelands and wound up on a boat, either because they were able to leap aboard and make their escape from the angry mob, the authorities, or bill collectors. Or maybe they were heeding the cal of the cium. And, just maybe, some were pirates. But a boat was involved.