During the 20th century the number of Irish immigrants was not great, and those who came tended to be Protestants from the north. This Malcolm Evans cartoon satirises a suggestion by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, himself the grandson of an Ulster-born immigrant, that New Zealand should welcome refugees from the Ulster 'Troubles' in 1976. The minister of immigration, Frank Gill, a Catholic, did not please his boss when he rejected five Protestants who had been involved in anti-IRA activities.