And you got it wrong. The Irish were not considered non-white. The ethnic divisions were (and are) most definitely not just White vs PoC. It used to be extremely important whether a person was a Catholic or a Protestant, for example, all other kinds of Christianity being conveniently ignored.
I liked JeanHeyd's blog because he is a good writer (but a bit on the chatty side). I also love what he does for the C standardization process. His skin colour is completely irrelevant.