Irish clubhouse

An old American slang term — now dated — for a police station. It played on the heavy Irish-American dominance of urban police forces in the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly in cities like New York, Boston, and Chicago, where Irish immigrants and their descendants filled the ranks in such numbers that the precinct house became culturally synonymous with Irish identity. The term is a historical curiosity that tells you a lot about the ethnic dynamics of American law enforcement history.