Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a lower-class Irish person.

1901		Intermountain Catholic (Salt Lake City) 5 Oct. 4/3: The descendants of the ‘shanty Irish’ and ‘low Dutch’ - the derisive terms applied to them by bigots.
1908		Kansas Chief (Troy, KS) 29 Oct. 4/1: The ‘niggers and shanty Irish’ in Doniphan County have increased.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 37: He call you lousy wop? [...] Notten but shanty Irish himself.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 10: They were always calling him names [...] shanty Irish.
1940		E. O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night Act I: He’s a wily Shanty Mick, that one.
1940		S. Longstreet Decade 192: And what is a shanty Irishman doing at a white man’s dance? You limping hodboy!
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] Paddy Burley and Cheater Riordan and all the other little shanty micks.
1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 360: I’ll have me own militia to keep you shanty Irish out of my way.
1967		W. Manus Mott the Hoople 140: Some shanty Irish who get juiced up.
1970		G. Sorrentino Steelwork 6: You might watch your language, he said [...] in front of this murderous shanty Mick.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 164: His folks were lushes, the two of them. Shanty Irish.
1981		(con. 1966) P. Conroy Lords of Discipline 224: A sloppy shanty Irishman.
1991		Florida Today (Cocoa, FL) 16 Mar. 1/4: There are what we call shanty Irish [...] Then there’s lace curtain Irish.
1997		Wausau Dly Herald (WI) 13 Mar. 9/2: ‘He’s lace-curtain Irish and I’m shanty Irish’.
2014		E. McNamara ‘Redline’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] [S]afely away from the blacks bussed in from the Vandeveer Houses and the shanty Irish from Gerritsen Beach bungalows.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1908		Kansas Chief (Troy, KS) 29 Oct. 4/1: After November 3, all the Irish will be of the ‘shanty’ breed.
1918		H.S. Truman letter 5 Aug. in Poen Letters Home (1984) 53: I’m the hard-boiled captain of a shanty Irish battery.
1926		J. Tully Jarnegan (1928) 11: You lousy shanty-Irish bum.
1929		J. Tully Shanty Irish 117: I’m jist plain Shanty Irish an’ I’ll go to hell when I die.
1930		W.R. Burnett Iron Man 7: You bet on that nigger, you cheap shanty mick, and I’ll give you the lacing of your life.
1942		P. Wylie Generation of Vipers 134: There were some Jewish gangsters [...] but there were shanty Irish rum barons.
1961		(con. early 1950s) J. Peacock Valhalla 23: ‘You ol’ Shanty-Irish sonofabitch you,’ he said thickly.
1987		S. King Misery (1988) 170: I’m no shanty-Irish moocher!
2014		R.J. Martin ‘Pimp Game ’76’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] His shanty-Irish mug curled into a look of disgust.