, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption =
, popplace =
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
Scranton
Scranton is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Lackawanna County. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 U.S. census, Scranton is the largest city in Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Wyoming V ...
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...
Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
Delaware Valley
The Delaware Valley is a metropolitan region on the East Coast of the United States that comprises and surrounds Philadelphia, the sixth most populous city in the nation and 68th largest city in the world as of 2020. The toponym Delaware Val ...
Coal Region
The Coal Region is a region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. It is known for being home to the largest known deposits of anthracite coal in the world with an estimated reserve of seven billion short tons.
The region is typically defined as compris ...
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,7 ...
Sacramento
)
, image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg
, mapsize = 250x200px
, map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...
Houston
Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 ...
Dallas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County ...
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
Palm Springs, California
Palm Springs (Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Riverside County by lan ...
Fairbanks
Fairbanks is a home rule city and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska and the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the p ...
and most urban areas
, langs =
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
(
American English dialects); a scant speak
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
, rels =
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
(51%)
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
(36%)
Other (3%)
No religion (10%) (2006)
, related =
Anglo-Irish people
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...
Breton Americans
Breton Americans are Americans of Breton descent from Brittany. An estimated 100,000 Bretons emigrated from Brittany to the United States between 1880 and 1980.
History
A large wave of Breton immigrants arrived in the New York City area during ...
Cornish Americans
Cornish Americans ( kw, Amerikanyon gernewek) are Americans who describe themselves as having Cornish ancestry, an ethnic group of Brittonic Celts native to Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, part of England in the United Kingdom. Although Cornish ...
English Americans
English Americans (historically known as Anglo-Americans) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in England.
In the 2020 American Community Survey, 25.21 million self-identified as being of English origin.
The term is disti ...
Irish Australians
Irish Australians ( ga, Gael-Astrálaigh) are an ethnic group of Australian citizens of Irish descent, which include immigrants from and descendants whose ancestry originates from the island of Ireland.
Irish Australians have played a conside ...
Irish Canadians
ga, Gael-Cheanadaigh
, image = Irish_Canadian_population_by_province.svg
, image_caption = Irish Canadians as percent of population by province/territory
, population = 4,627,00013.4% of the Canadian population (2016)
, po ...
Irish Catholics
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
Manx Americans
Manx Americans are Americans of full or partial Manx ancestral origin or Manx people who reside in the United States of America.
Settlement in Ohio
The city of Cleveland, Ohio is said to have the highest concentration of Americans of Manx des ...
Scotch-Irish Americans
Scotch-Irish (or Scots-Irish) Americans are American descendants of Ulster Protestants who emigrated from Ulster in northern Ireland to America during the 18th and 19th centuries, whose ancestors had originally migrated to Ireland mainly from ...
Scottish Americans
Scottish Americans or Scots Americans (Scottish Gaelic: ''Ameireaganaich Albannach''; sco, Scots-American) are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Scotland. Scottish Americans are closely related to Scotch-Irish Americans, d ...
Scottish Canadians
Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish descent or heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and amongst the first Europeans to settle in the country, Scottish people have made a large impact on Canadian culture sin ...
Ulster Protestants
Ulster Protestants ( ga, Protastúnaigh Ultach) are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Britain in the ...
Ulster Scots people
The Ulster Scots ( Ulster-Scots: ''Ulstèr-Scotch''; ga, Albanaigh Ultach), also called Ulster Scots people (''Ulstèr-Scotch fowk'') or (in North America) Scotch-Irish (''Scotch-Airisch''), are an ethnic group in Ireland, who speak an Ul ...
Welsh Americans
Welsh Americans ( cy, Americanwyr Cymreig) are an American ethnic group whose ancestry originates wholly or partly in Wales. In the 2008 U.S. Census community survey, an estimated 1.98 million Americans had Welsh ancestry, 0.6% of the total U. ...
Irish Americans or Hiberno-Americans ( ga, Gael-Mheiriceánaigh) are Americans who have full or partial ancestry from
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
. About 32 million Americans — 9.7% of the total population — identified as being Irish in the 2020
American Community Survey
The American Community Survey (ACS) is a demographics survey program conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. It regularly gathers information previously contained only in the long form of the decennial census, such as ancestry, citizenship, educati ...
conducted by the
U.S. Census Bureau
The United States Census Bureau (USCB), officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the ...
.
Irish immigration to the United States
17th to mid-19th century
Some of the first Irish people to travel to the New World did so as members of the Spanish garrison in Florida during the 1560s, and small numbers of Irish colonists were involved in efforts to establish colonies in the Amazon region, in Newfoundland, and in Virginia between 1604 and the 1630s. According to historian Donald Akenson, there were "few if any" Irish were forcibly transported to the Americas during this period.
Irish immigration to the Americas was the result of a series of complex causes. The
Tudor conquest and
subsequent colonization during the 16th and 17th centuries had led to widespread social upheaval in Ireland, and drove many Irish people to try and seek a better life elsewhere; this coincided with the rapid establishment of
European colonies in the Americas, offering a source of emigration for prospective migrants. Most Irish immigrants to the Americas came as indentured servants, though others were merchants and landowners who served as key players in a variety of different mercantile and colonizing enterprises.
Significant numbers of Irish laborers began traveling to
English colonies
The English overseas possessions, also known as the English colonial empire, comprised a variety of overseas territories that were colonised, conquered, or otherwise acquired by the former Kingdom of England during the centuries before the Ac ...
such as Virginia, the Leeward Islands, and Barbados in the 1620s.
Half of the Irish immigrants to the
United States in its colonial era (1607–1775) came from the Irish province of
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
, while the other half came from the other three provinces (
Leinster
Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...
,
Munster
Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...
and
Connacht
Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and ...
).
In the 17th century, immigration from Ireland to the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centu ...
was minimal,
confined mostly to male
indentured servants
Indentured servitude is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an "indenture", may be entered "voluntarily" for purported eventual compensation or debt repayment, ...
who were primarily
Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
and peaked with 8,000
prisoner-of-war
A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610.
Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...
penal transports to the
Chesapeake Colonies from the
Cromwellian conquest of Ireland
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland or Cromwellian war in Ireland (1649–1653) was the re-conquest of Ireland by the forces of the English Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell, during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Cromwell invaded Ireland w ...
in the 1650s (out of a total of approximately 10,000 Catholic immigrants from Ireland to the United States prior to the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
in 1775).
Indentured servitude in British America
Indentured servitude in British America was the prominent system of labor in the British American colonies until it was eventually supplanted by slavery. During its time, the system was so prominent that more than half of all immigrants to Britis ...
emerged in part due to the high cost of passage across the Atlantic Ocean, and as a consequence, which colonies indentured servants immigrated to depended upon which colonies their patrons chose to immigrate to.
While the
Colony of Virginia
The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...
passed laws prohibiting the free exercise of
Catholicism during the colonial period,
the
General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of pres ...
of the
Province of Maryland
The Province of Maryland was an Kingdom of England, English and later British Empire, British colony in North America that existed from 1632 until 1776, when it joined the other twelve of the Thirteen Colonies in American Revolution, rebellion ag ...
enacted laws in 1639 protecting
freedom of religion
Freedom of religion or religious liberty is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or community, in public or private, to manifest religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance. It also includes the freedo ...
(following the instructions of a 1632 letter from
Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore
Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore (8 August 1605 – 30 November 1675), also often known as Cecilius Calvert, was an English nobleman, who was the first Proprietor of the Province of Maryland, ninth Proprietary Governor of the Colony of Newf ...
to his brother
Leonard Calvert
The Hon. Leonard Calvert (1606 – June 9, 1647) was the first proprietary governor of the Province of Maryland. He was the second son of The 1st Baron Baltimore (1579–1632), the first proprietor of Maryland. His elder brother Cecil (1605 ...
, the
1st Proprietary-Governor of Maryland), and the Maryland General Assembly later passed the 1649
Maryland Toleration Act
The Maryland Toleration Act, also known as the Act Concerning Religion, the first law in North America requiring religious tolerance for Christians. It was passed on April 21, 1649, by the assembly of the Maryland colony, in St. Mary's City in ...
explicitly guaranteeing those privileges for Catholics.
Like the entire indentured servant population in the Chesapeake Colonies at the time, 40 to 50 percent died before completing their contracts. This was due in large part to the
Tidewater region's highly malignant disease environment, with most not establishing families and dying childless because the population of the Chesapeake Colonies, like the
Thirteen Colonies
The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centu ...
in the aggregate, was not sex-balanced until the 18th century because three-quarters of the immigrants to the Chesapeake Colonies were male (and in some periods, 4:1 or 6:1 male-to-female) and fewer than 1 percent were over the age of 35. As a consequence, the population only grew due to sustained immigration rather than
natural increase, and many of those who survived their indentured servitude contracts left the region.
In 1650, all five Catholic churches with regular
services
Service may refer to:
Activities
* Administrative service, a required part of the workload of university faculty
* Civil service, the body of employees of a government
* Community service, volunteer service for the benefit of a community or a p ...
in the
eight British American colonies were located in Maryland. The 17th-century Maryland Catholic community had a high degree of
social capital
Social capital is "the networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society, enabling that society to function effectively". It involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships ...
. Catholic-Protestant
interdenominational marriage
Interdenominational marriage, sometimes called an inter-sect marriage or ecumenical marriage, is marriage between spouses professing a different denomination of same religion.
Interdenominational marriages are distinguished from interfaith ma ...
was not common, Catholic-Protestant intermarriages nearly always resulted in conversion to Catholicism by Protestant marital partners, and children who were born as the result of Catholic-Protestant intermarriages were nearly always raised as Catholics.
Additionally, 17th-century Maryland Catholics often stipulated in their
wills that their children be
disinherited if they renounced
Catholicism
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
.
In contrast to 17th-century Maryland, the
Plymouth
Plymouth () is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in South West England. It is located on the south coast of Devon, approximately south-west of Exeter and south-west of London. It is bordered by Cornwall to ...
,
Massachusetts Bay
Massachusetts Bay is a bay on the Gulf of Maine that forms part of the central coastline of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Description
The bay extends from Cape Ann on the north to Plymouth Harbor on the south, a distance of about . Its ...
and
Connecticut Colonies restricted suffrage to members of the
established Puritan
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. ...
church, while the
Province of Carolina
Province of Carolina was a province of England (1663–1707) and Great Britain (1707–1712) that existed in North America and the Caribbean from 1663 until partitioned into North and South on January 24, 1712. It is part of present-day Alabam ...
did not restrict suffrage to members of the established
Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...
church. The
Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was one of the original Thirteen Colonies established on the east coast of America, bordering the Atlantic Ocean. It was founded by Roger Williams. It was an English colony from 1636 until 1 ...
had no established church, while the former
New Netherland
New Netherland ( nl, Nieuw Nederland; la, Novum Belgium or ) was a 17th-century colonial province of the Dutch Republic that was located on the east coast of what is now the United States. The claimed territories extended from the Delmarva ...
colonies (
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
,
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...
, and
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...
) also had no established church under the
Duke's Laws, and the
Frame of Government
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these princip ...
in
William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
's 1682 land grant established free exercise of religion for all Christians in the
Province of Pennsylvania
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn after receiving a land grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania ("Penn's Woods") refers to Wi ...
.
Following the
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
(1688–1689), Catholics were
disenfranchised in Maryland, New York, Rhode Island, Carolina, and Virginia,
although in Maryland, suffrage was restored in 1702.
In 1692, the Maryland General Assembly established the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...
as the official state church.
In 1698 and 1699, Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina passed laws specifically limiting immigration of Irish Catholic indentured servants.
In 1700, the estimated population of Maryland was 29,600,
about 2,500 of which were Catholic.
In the 18th century, emigration from Ireland to the Thirteen Colonies shifted from being primarily Catholic to being primarily
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
, and with the exception of the 1790s it would remain so until the mid-to-late 1830s,
with
Presbyterians
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...
constituting the
absolute majority
A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority r ...
until 1835.
These Protestant immigrants were principally descended from
Scottish and
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
pastoralists and colonial administrators (often from the South/
Lowlands
Upland and lowland are conditional descriptions of a plain based on elevation above sea level. In studies of the ecology of freshwater rivers, habitats are classified as upland or lowland.
Definitions
Upland and lowland are portions of p ...
of Scotland and the bordering
North of England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North Country, or simply the North, is the northern area of England. It broadly corresponds to the former borders of Angle Northumbria, the Anglo-Scandinavian Kingdom of Jorvik, and the ...
) who had in the previous century settled the
Plantations of Ireland
Plantations in 16th- and 17th-century Ireland involved the confiscation of Irish-owned land by the English Crown and the colonisation of this land with settlers from Great Britain. The Crown saw the plantations as a means of controlling, an ...
, the largest of which was the
Plantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster ( gle, Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: ''Plantin o Ulstèr'') was the organised colonisation ('' plantation'') of Ulstera province of Irelandby people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of th ...
,
and these Protestant immigrants primarily migrated as families rather than as individuals.
In Ireland, they are referred to as the "
Ulster Scots" and the "
Anglo-Irish
Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...
" respectively, and because the Protestant population in Ireland was and remains concentrated in Ulster, and because after the
partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. ...
in the 20th century Protestants in Northern Ireland on census reports have largely since self-identified their
national identity
National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
as "British" rather than "Irish" or "Northern Irish," Protestants in Ireland are collectively referred to as the "
Ulster Protestants
Ulster Protestants ( ga, Protastúnaigh Ultach) are an ethnoreligious group in the Irish province of Ulster, where they make up about 43.5% of the population. Most Ulster Protestants are descendants of settlers who arrived from Britain in the ...
."
Additionally, the Ulster Scots and Anglo-Irish intermarried to some degree,
and the Ulster Scots also intermarried with
Huguenot
The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...
refugees from the
Kingdom of France
The Kingdom of France ( fro, Reaume de France; frm, Royaulme de France; french: link=yes, Royaume de France) is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France in the medieval and early modern period. ...
following the 1685
Edict of Fontainebleau
The Edict of Fontainebleau (22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to practice their religion without ...
issued by
Louis XIV
Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the Li ...
,
and some of the Anglo-Irish settlers were actually
Welsh
Welsh may refer to:
Related to Wales
* Welsh, referring or related to Wales
* Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales
* Welsh people
People
* Welsh (surname)
* Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
or
Manx.
They seldom intermarried with the
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
population in part because intermarriage between Protestants and Catholics was banned by the
Penal Laws (1691–1778) that gave rise the
Protestant Ascendancy
The ''Protestant Ascendancy'', known simply as the ''Ascendancy'', was the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland between the 17th century and the early 20th century by a minority of landowners, Protestant clergy, and members of th ...
, which rendered any children who were born to extralegal Catholic-Protestant intermarriages
illegitimate
Legitimacy, in traditional Western common law, is the status of a child born to parents who are legally married to each other, and of a child conceived before the parents obtain a legal divorce. Conversely, ''illegitimacy'', also known as '' ...
and legally ineligible to inherit their parents' property under
English law
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.
Principal elements of English law
Although the common law has, historically, b ...
(while Presbyterian marriages were not even recognized by the state).
In turn, the
canon law of the Catholic Church
The canon law of the Catholic Church ("canon law" comes from Latin ') is "how the Church organizes and governs herself". It is the system of laws and ecclesiastical legal principles made and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Cathol ...
also
designated Catholic-Protestant intermarriages illegitimate until
Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI ( it, Pio VI; born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, 25 December 171729 August 1799) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 15 February 1775 to his death in August 1799.
Pius VI condemned the French Revoluti ...
extended
Pope Benedict XIV
Pope Benedict XIV ( la, Benedictus XIV; it, Benedetto XIV; 31 March 1675 – 3 May 1758), born Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini, was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 17 August 1740 to his death in May 1758. Pope Be ...
's
matrimonial dispensation
In the jurisprudence of the canon law of the Catholic Church, a dispensation is the exemption from the immediate obligation of law in certain cases.The Law of Christ Vol. I, pg. 284 Its object is to modify the hardship often arising from the ...
to Ireland in 1785 for the ''
Tametsi'' decree of the
Council of Trent
The Council of Trent ( la, Concilium Tridentinum), held between 1545 and 1563 in Trent (or Trento), now in northern Italy, was the 19th ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. Prompted by the Protestant Reformation, it has been described a ...
(1563),
and Irish Catholics almost never converted to Protestant churches during the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
.
Catholic-Protestant intermarriage would remain rare in Ireland through the early 20th century.
In 1704, the Maryland General Assembly passed a law which banned the
Jesuits
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
from
proselytizing
Proselytism () is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Proselytism is illegal in some countries.
Some draw distinctions between ''evangelism'' or '' Da‘wah'' and proselytism regarding proselytism as invol ...
,
baptizing
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
children other than those with Catholic parents, and
publicly conducting Catholic Mass
The Mass is the central liturgical service of the Eucharist in the Catholic Church, in which bread and wine are consecrated and become the body and blood of Christ. As defined by the Church at the Council of Trent, in the Mass, "the same Chri ...
. Two months after its passage, the General Assembly modified the legislation to allow Mass to be privately conducted for an 18-month period. In 1707, the General Assembly passed a law which permanently allowed Mass to be privately conducted. During this period, the General Assembly also began levying taxes on the passage of Irish Catholic indentured servants. In 1718, the General Assembly required a
religious test A religious test is a legal requirement to swear faith to a specific religion or sect, or to renounce the same.
In the United Kingdom
British Test Act of 1673 and 1678
The Test Act of 1673 in England obligated all persons filling any office, c ...
for voting that resumed disenfranchisement of Catholics.
However, lax enforcement of
penal laws in Maryland (due to its population being overwhelmingly rural) enabled churches on Jesuit-operated farms and plantations to grow and become stable
parishes
A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...
.
In 1750, of the 30 Catholic churches with regular services in the Thirteen Colonies, 15 were located in Maryland, 11 in Pennsylvania, and 4 in the former New Netherland colonies. By 1756, the number of Catholics in Maryland had increased to approximately 7,000,
which increased further to 20,000 by 1765.
In Pennsylvania, there were approximately 3,000 Catholics in 1756 and 6,000 by 1765 (the large majority of the Pennsylvania Catholic population was from
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...
).
From 1717 to 1775, though scholarly estimates vary, the most common approximation is that 250,000 immigrants from Ireland emigrated to the Thirteen Colonies. By the beginning of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
in 1775, approximately only 2 to 3 percent of the colonial
labor force
The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic ...
was composed of indentured servants, and of those arriving from Britain from 1773 to 1776, fewer than 5 percent were from Ireland (while 85 percent remained male and 72 percent went to the
Southern Colonies).
Immigration during the war came to a standstill except by 5,000
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
mercenaries from
Hesse
Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major historic cities are ...
who remained in the country following the war.
Out of the 115 killed at the
Battle of Bunker Hill
The Battle of Bunker Hill was fought on June 17, 1775, during the Siege of Boston in the first stage of the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Massachusetts, which was peripherally involved in ...
, 22 were Irish-born. Their names include Callaghan, Casey, Collins, Connelly, Dillon, Donohue, Flynn, McGrath, Nugent, Shannon, and Sullivan
By the end of the war in 1783, there were approximately 24,000 to 25,000 Catholics in the United States (including 3,000
slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
) out of a total population of approximately 3 million (or less than 1 percent).
The majority of the Catholic population in the United States during the colonial period came from
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, Germany, and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
, not Ireland,
despite failed academic efforts by Irish
historiographers
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...
to demonstrate Irish Catholics as being more numerous in the colonial period than previous scholarship had indicated.
By 1790, approximately 400,000 people of Irish birth or ancestry lived in the United States (or greater than 10 percent of the total population of approximately 3.9 million).
The U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates 2% of the United States population in 1776 was of native Irish heritage. The Catholic population grew to approximately 50,000 by 1800 (or less than 1 percent of the total population of approximately 5.3 million) due to increased Catholic emigration from Ireland during the 1790s.
In the 18th-century Thirteen Colonies and the independent United States, while
interethnic marriage among Catholics remained a dominant pattern, Catholic-Protestant intermarriage became more common (notably in the
Shenandoah Valley
The Shenandoah Valley () is a geographic valley and cultural region of western Virginia and the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. The valley is bounded to the east by the Blue Ridge Mountains, to the west by the eastern front of the Ridg ...
where intermarriage among Ulster Protestants and the significant minority of Irish Catholics in particular was not uncommon or stigmatized),
and while fewer Catholic parents required that their children be disinherited in their wills if they renounced Catholicism, it remained more common among Catholic parents to do so if their children renounced their parents faith in proportion to the rest of the U.S. population.
Despite this, many Irish Catholics that immigrated to the United States from 1770 to 1830 converted to
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul c ...
and
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
churches during the
Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the early 19th century in the United States. The Second Great Awakening, which spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching, sparked a number of reform movements. R ...
(1790–1840).
In between the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 and the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It be ...
, 100,000 immigrants came from Ulster to the United States.
During the
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Pruss ...
(1792–1802) and
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fre ...
(1803–1815), there was a 22-year
economic expansion
An economic expansion is an increase in the level of economic activity, and of the goods and services available. It is a period of economic growth as measured by a rise in real GDP. The explanation of fluctuations in aggregate economic activit ...
in Ireland due to increased need for agricultural products for British soldiers and an expanding population in England. Following the conclusion of the
War of the Seventh Coalition
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...
and
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
's exile to
Saint Helena
Saint Helena () is a British overseas territory located in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote volcanic tropical island west of the coast of south-western Africa, and east of Rio de Janeiro in South America. It is one of three constit ...
in 1815, there was a
six-year international
economic depression
An economic depression is a period of carried long-term economical downturn that is result of lowered economic activity in one major or more national economies. Economic depression maybe related to one specific country were there is some economic ...
that led to
plummeting grain prices and a cropland rent spike in Ireland.
From 1815 to 1845, 500,000 more Irish Protestant immigrants came from Ireland to the United States,
as part of a migration of approximately 1 million immigrants from Ireland from 1820 to 1845.
In 1820, following the
Louisiana Purchase
The Louisiana Purchase (french: Vente de la Louisiane, translation=Sale of Louisiana) was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. In return for fifteen million dollars, or ap ...
in 1804 and the
Adams–Onís Treaty
The Adams–Onís Treaty () of 1819, also known as the Transcontinental Treaty, the Florida Purchase Treaty, or the Florida Treaty,Weeks, p.168. was a treaty between the United States and Spain in 1819 that ceded Florida to the U.S. and define ...
in 1819, the Catholic population of the United States had grown to 195,000 (or approximately 2 percent of the total population of approximately 9.6 million).
By 1840, along with resumed immigration from Germany by the 1820s,
the Catholic population grew to 663,000 (or approximately 4 percent out of the total population of 17.1 million).
Following the
potato blight
''Phytophthora infestans'' is an oomycete or water mold, a fungus-like microorganism that causes the serious potato and tomato disease known as late blight or potato blight. Early blight, caused by ''Alternaria solani'', is also often called "po ...
in late 1845 that initiated the
Great Famine in Ireland, from 1846 to 1851, more than 1 million more Irish immigrated to the United States, 90 percent of whom were Catholic.
Many of the Famine immigrants to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
required
quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been ...
on
Staten Island
Staten Island ( ) is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City, coextensive with Richmond County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located in the city's southwest portion, the borough is separated from New Jersey b ...
or
Blackwell's Island
Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to 85 ...
and thousands died from
typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as typhoid, is a disease caused by '' Salmonella'' serotype Typhi bacteria. Symptoms vary from mild to severe, and usually begin six to 30 days after exposure. Often there is a gradual onset of a high fever over severa ...
or
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium '' Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting an ...
for reasons directly or indirectly related to the Famine.
By 1850, following the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...
(1846–1848) that left a residual population of 80,000
Mexicans
Mexicans ( es, mexicanos) are the citizens of the United Mexican States.
The most spoken language by Mexicans is Spanish, but some may also speak languages from 68 different Indigenous linguistic groups and other languages brought to Mexi ...
in the
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States, also known as the American Southwest or simply the Southwest, is a geographic and cultural region of the United States that generally includes Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent portions of California, Colorado, N ...
,
and along with increasing immigration from Germany,
the Catholic population in the United States had grown to 1.6 million (or approximately 7 percent of the total population of approximately 23.2 million).
Despite the small increase in Catholic-Protestant intermarriage following the American Revolutionary War,
Catholic-Protestant intermarriage remained uncommon in the United States in the 19th century.
Historians have characterized the etymology of the term "
Scotch-Irish" as obscure,
and the term itself as misleading and confusing to the extent that even its usage by authors in historic works of literature about the Scotch-Irish (such as ''The Mind of the South'' by
W. J. Cash
Wilbur Joseph Cash (May 2, 1900 – July 1, 1941) was an American journalist known for writing ''The Mind of the South'' (1941), his controversial interpretation of the history of the American South.
Biography Early life
Cash was born and grew u ...
) is often incorrect.
Historians
David Hackett Fischer
David Hackett Fischer (born December 2, 1935) is University Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University. Fischer's major works have covered topics ranging from large macroeconomic and cultural trends ('' Albion's Seed,'' '' The Great Wave ...
and James G. Leyburn note that usage of the term is unique to
North American English
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), ...
and it is rarely used by British historians, or in Scotland or Ireland.
The first recorded usage of the term was by
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen".
Eli ...
in 1573 in reference to
Gaelic-speaking Scottish Highlanders
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sc ...
who crossed the
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the C ...
and intermarried with the
Irish Catholic
Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...
natives of Ireland.
While Protestant immigrants from Ireland in the 18th century were more commonly identified as "Anglo-Irish," and while some preferred to self-identify as "Anglo-Irish,"
usage of "Scotch-Irish" in reference to
Ulster Scots who immigrated to the United States in the 18th century likely became common among
Episcopalians
Anglicanism is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Euro ...
and
Quakers
Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...
in Pennsylvania, and records show that usage of the term with this meaning was made as early as 1757 by the Anglo-Irish philosopher
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
.
However, multiple historians have noted that from the time of the
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...
until 1850, the term largely fell out of usage, because most Ulster Protestants self-identified as "Irish" until large waves of immigration by Irish Catholics both during and after the
1840s Great Famine in Ireland led those Ulster Protestants in America who lived in proximity to the new immigrants to change their self-identification from "Irish" to "Scotch-Irish," while those Ulster Protestants who did not live in proximity to Irish Catholics continued to self-identify as "Irish," or as time went on, to start self-identifying as being of "
American ancestry
American ancestry refers to people in the United States who self-identify their ancestral origin or descent as "American," rather than the more common officially recognized racial and ethnic groups that make up the bulk of the American peo ...
."
While those historians note that renewed usage of "Scotch-Irish" after 1850 was motivated by
anti-Catholic prejudices among Ulster Protestants,
considering the historically low rates of intermarriage between Protestants and Catholics in both Ireland and the United States, as well as the relative frequency of
interethnic and
interdenominational marriage
Interdenominational marriage, sometimes called an inter-sect marriage or ecumenical marriage, is marriage between spouses professing a different denomination of same religion.
Interdenominational marriages are distinguished from interfaith ma ...
amongst Protestants in Ulster, and the fact that not all Protestant migrants from Ireland historically were Ulster Scots,
James G. Leyburn argued for retaining its usage for reasons of utility and preciseness,
while historian Wayland F. Dunaway also argued for retention for historical precedent and
linguistic description
In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013).
All aca ...
.
During the colonial period, Scots-Irish settled in the
southern Appalachia
Appalachia () is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, Can ...
n backcountry and in the
Carolina Piedmont
it, Piemontese
, population_note =
, population_blank1_title =
, population_blank1 =
, demographics_type1 =
, demographics1_footnotes =
, demographics1_title1 =
, demographics1_info1 =
, demographics1_title2 ...
. They became the primary cultural group in these areas, and their descendants were in the vanguard of westward movement through
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
into
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...
and
Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
, and thence into
Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
,
Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
and
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. By the 19th century, through intermarriage with settlers of English and German ancestry, the descendants of the Scots-Irish lost their identification with Ireland. "This generation of pioneers...was a generation of Americans, not of Englishmen or Germans or Scots-Irish." The two groups had little initial interaction in America, as the 18th-century Ulster immigrants were predominantly
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
and had become settled largely in upland regions of the American interior, while the huge wave of 19th-century Catholic immigrant families settled primarily in the Northeast and Midwest port cities such as
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
,
Buffalo, or
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
. However, beginning in the early 19th century, many Irish migrated individually to the interior for work on large-scale infrastructure projects such as
canals
Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or engineered channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport vehicles (e.g. water taxi). They carry free, calm surface flow un ...
and, later in the century,
railroads
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
.
The Scots-Irish settled mainly in the colonial "back country" of the
Appalachian Mountain
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
region, and became the prominent ethnic strain in the culture that developed there. The descendants of Scots-Irish settlers had a great influence on the later culture of the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
in particular and the culture of the United States in general through such contributions as
American folk music
The term American folk music encompasses numerous music genres, variously known as ''traditional music'', ''traditional folk music'', ''contemporary folk music'', ''vernacular music,'' or ''roots music''. Many traditional songs have been sung ...
,
country and western
A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, while t ...
music, and
stock car racing
Stock car racing is a form of automobile racing run on oval tracks and road courses measuring approximately . It originally used production-model cars, hence the name "stock car", but is now run using cars specifically built for racing. It or ...
, which became popular throughout the country in the late 20th century.
![Charlescarrollofcarrollton](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Charlescarrollofcarrollton.jpg)
Irish immigrants of this period participated in significant numbers in the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
, leading one British Army officer to testify at the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
that "half the rebels (referring to soldiers in the Continental Army) were from Ireland." Irish Americans signed the foundational documents of the United States—the
Declaration of Independence
A declaration of independence or declaration of statehood or proclamation of independence is an assertion by a polity in a defined territory that it is independent and constitutes a state. Such places are usually declared from part or all of th ...
and the
Constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When these pr ...
—and, beginning with
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
, served as president.
1790 population of Irish origin by state
Irish Catholics in the South
In 1820 Irish-born
John England became the first Catholic bishop in the mainly Protestant city of
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint o ...
. During the 1820s and 1830s, Bishop England defended the Catholic minority against Protestant prejudices. In 1831 and 1835, he established free schools for free
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
children. Inflamed by the propaganda of the
American Anti-Slavery Society
The American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS; 1833–1870) was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this socie ...
, a mob raided the Charleston post office in 1835 and the next day turned its attention to England's school. England led Charleston's "Irish Volunteers" to defend the school. Soon after this, however, all schools for "free blacks" were closed in Charleston, and England acquiesced.
Two pairs of Irish empresarios founded colonies in coastal
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
in 1828. John McMullen and James McGloin honored the Irish saint when they established the San Patricio Colony south of San Antonio; James Power and James Hewetson contracted to create the Refugio Colony on the Gulf Coast. The two colonies were settled mainly by Irish, but also by Mexicans and other nationalities. At least 87 Irish-surnamed individuals settled in the Peters Colony, which included much of present-day north-central Texas, in the 1840s. The Irish participated in all phases of Texas' war of independence against Mexico. Among those who died defending the Alamo in March 1836 were 12 who were Irish-born, while an additional 14 bore Irish surnames. About 100 Irish-born soldiers participated in the Battle of San Jacinto – about one-seventh of the total force of
Texians
Texians were Anglo-American residents of Mexican Texas and, later, the Republic of Texas.
Today, the term is used to identify early settlers of Texas, especially those who supported the Texas Revolution. Mexican settlers of that era are ref ...
in that conflict.
The Irish Catholics concentrated in a few medium-sized cities, where they were highly visible, especially in
Charleston,
Savannah
A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...
and
.
They often became precinct leaders in the
Democratic Party Organizations, opposed
abolition of slavery
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people.
The British ...
, and generally favored preserving the
Union in 1860, when they voted for
Stephen Douglas
Stephen Arnold Douglas (April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois. A senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party for president in the 1860 presidential election, which wa ...
.
After secession in 1861, the Irish Catholic community supported the
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...
and 20,000 Irish Catholics served in the
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
. Gleason says:
Irish nationalist
John Mitchel
John Mitchel ( ga, Seán Mistéal; 3 November 1815 – 20 March 1875) was an Irish nationalist activist, author, and political journalist. In the Famine years of the 1840s he was a leading writer for ''The Nation'' newspaper produced by the ...
lived in Tennessee and Virginia during his exile from Ireland and was one of the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
' most outspoken supporters during the American Civil War through his newspapers the ''Southern Citizen'' and the ''Richmond Enquirer''.
Although most began as unskilled laborers, Irish Catholics in the South achieved average or above average economic status by 1900. David T. Gleeson emphasizes how well they were accepted by society:
Mid-19th century and later
Before the 1800s, Irish immigrants to North America often moved to the countryside. Some worked in the fur trade, trapping and exploring, but most settled in rural farms and villages. They cleared the land of trees, built homes, and planted fields. Many others worked in coastal areas as fishers, on ships, and as dockworkers. In the 1800s, Irish immigrants in the United States tended to stay in the large cities where they landed.
![Irish Memorial in Philadelphia 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Irish_Memorial_in_Philadelphia_1.jpg)
From 1820 to 1860, 1,956,557 Irish arrived, 75% of these after the
Great Irish Famine
The Great Famine ( ga, an Gorta Mór ), also known within Ireland as the Great Hunger or simply the Famine and outside Ireland as the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a h ...
(or ''The Great Hunger'', ga, An Gorta Mór) of 1845–1852, struck.
According to a 2019 study, "the sons of farmers and illiterate men were more likely to emigrate than their literate and skilled counterparts. Emigration rates were highest in poorer farming communities with stronger migrant networks."
Of the total
Irish immigrants
The Irish diaspora ( ga, Diaspóra na nGael) refers to ethnic Irish people and their descendants who live outside the island of Ireland.
The phenomenon of migration from Ireland is recorded since the Early Middle Ages,Flechner and Meeder, The ...
to the U.S. from 1820 to 1860, many died crossing the ocean due to disease and dismal conditions of what became known as
coffin ship
A coffin ship () was any of the ships that carried Irish immigrants escaping the Great Irish Famine and Highlanders displaced by the Highland Clearances.
Coffin ships carrying emigrants, crowded and disease-ridden, with poor access to food ...
s.
Irish immigration had greatly increased beginning in the 1830s due to the need for unskilled labor in canal building, lumbering, and construction works in the
Northeast
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
.
[Ruckenstein and O'Malley (2003), p. 195.] The large
Erie Canal
The Erie Canal is a historic canal in upstate New York that runs east-west between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. Completed in 1825, the canal was the first navigable waterway connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes, vastly reducing ...
project was one such example where Irishmen were many of the laborers. Small but tight communities developed in growing cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and New York.
Most Irish immigrants to the United States during this period favored large cities because they could create their own communities for support and protection in a new environment. Cities with large numbers of Irish immigrants included Boston, Philadelphia, and New York, as well as
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
,
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
,
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
,
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
,
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
,
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
St. Paul
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
,
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, and
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
.
![TollgateRoscommon](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/TollgateRoscommon.jpg)
While many Irish did stay near large cities, countless others were part of westward expansion. They were enticed by tales of gold, and by the increasing opportunities for work and land. In 1854, the government opened Kansas Territory to settlers.
While many people in general moved to take advantage of the unsettled land, Irish were an important part. Many Irish men were physical laborers. In order to colonize the west, many strong men were needed to build the towns and cities.
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more th ...
was one city that was built by Irish immigrants.
Much of its population today is of Irish descent. Another reason for Irish migration west was the expansion of railroads. Railway work was a common occupation among immigrant men because workers were in such high demand. Many Irish men followed the expansion of railroads, and ended up settling in places that they built in. Since the Irish were a large part of those Americans moving west, much of their culture can still be found today.
Between 1851 and 1920, 3.3 to 3.7 million Irish immigrated to the United States,
including more than 90 percent of the more than 1 million Ulster Protestant emigrants out of Ireland from 1851 to 1900.
Following the
Great Famine (1845–1852), emigration from Ireland came primarily from
Munster
Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following t ...
and
Connacht
Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms ( Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and ...
,
while 28 percent of all immigrants from Ireland from 1851 to 1900 continued to come from Ulster. Ulster immigration continued to account for as much as 20 percent of all immigration from Ireland to the United States in the 1880s and 1890s,
and still accounted for 19 percent of all immigration from Ireland to the United States from 1900 to 1909 and 25 percent from 1910 to 1914.
The Catholic population in the United States grew to 3.1 million by 1860 (or approximately 10 percent of the total U.S. population of 31.4 million),
to 6.3 million by 1880 (or approximately 13 percent of the total U.S. population of 50.2 million),
and further to 19.8 million by 1920 (or approximately 19 percent of the total U.S. population of 106 million).
The 309 Connemara emigrants, selected by their local clergy as suitable for a new life in America, arrived at Boston June 14, 1880, 11 days after departure from Galway Bay on the SS ''Austrian'', an Allen Line ship. The settling of 'The Connemaras', as they became known, was a new venture prompted by a Liverpool priest, Fr Patrick Nugent renowned for his 'philanthropic and truly patriotic exertions to alleviate the social conditions of his fellow countrymen in England'; and Archbishop John Ireland, of St Paul, Minnesota, who was already settling thousands of Irish Catholics who were trapped in the ghettoes of New York and elsewhere, on rich prairie lands.
![Thomas A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Thomas_A._Butler_%28retouched%29.jpg)
However, due to continued immigration from Germany,
and beginning in the 1880s, waves of immigration from Italy, Poland, and Canada (by
French Canadians
French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fren ...
) as well as from Mexico from 1900 to 1920,
Irish Catholics never accounted for a majority of the Catholic population in the United States through 1920.
In the 1920s, an additional 220,000 immigrants from Ireland came to the United States,
with emigration from Ulster falling off to 10,000 of 126,000 immigrants from Ireland (or less than 10 percent) between 1925 and 1930.
Following the
Immigration Act of 1924
The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and National Origins Act (), was a United States federal law that prevented immigration from Asia and set quotas on the number of immigrants from the Eastern ...
and the
Great Depression
The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
,
from 1930 to 1975, only 141,000 more immigrants came from Ireland to the United States.
Improving economic conditions during the
Post–World War II economic expansion
The post–World War II economic expansion, also known as the postwar economic boom or the Golden Age of Capitalism, was a broad period of worldwide economic expansion beginning after World War II and ending with the 1973–1975 recession. The ...
and the passage of the restrictive
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart–Celler Act and more recently as the 1965 Immigration Act, is a federal law passed by the 89th United States Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ...
contributed to the decline in mass immigration from Ireland.
Due to the
early 1980s recession
The early 1980s recession was a severe economic recession that affected much of the world between approximately the start of 1980 and 1983. It is widely considered to have been the most severe recession since World War II. A key event leading to ...
, 360,000 Irish emigrated out of the country, with the majority going to England and many to the United States (including approximately 40,000 to 150,000 on overstayed
travel visa
A visa (from the Latin ''charta visa'', meaning "paper that has been seen") is a conditional authorization granted by a polity to a foreigner that allows them to enter, remain within, or leave its territory. Visas typically include limits on ...
s as
undocumented aliens).
Beginning in the 1970s, surveys of self-identified Irish Americans found that consistent majorities of Irish Americans also self-identified as being Protestant.
While there was a greater total number of immigrants after immigration from Ireland transitioned to being primarily Catholic in the mid-to-late 1830s,
fertility rates in the United States were lower from 1840 to 1970 after immigration from Ireland became primarily Catholic than they were from 1700 to 1840 when immigration was primarily Protestant. Also, while Irish immigrants to the United States in the early 20th century had higher fertility rates than the U.S. population as a whole, they had lower fertility rates than German immigrants to the United States during the same time period and lower fertility rates than the contemporaneous population of Ireland, and subsequent generations had lower fertility rates than the emigrant generation. This is due to the fact that despite coming from the rural regions of an agrarian society, Irish immigrants in the post-Famine migration generally immigrated to the
urban areas of the United States because by 1850 the costs of moving to a
rural area
In general, a rural area or a countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas and areas with forestry typically are descr ...
and establishing a farm was beyond the financial means of most Irish immigrants.
In the 1990s, the
Irish economy began to boom again, and by the turn of the 21st century, immigration to Ireland from the United States began to consistently exceed immigration from Ireland to the United States.
Civil War through the early 20th century
![Irish American2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Irish_American2.png)
During the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...
, Irish Americans volunteered for the
Union Army
During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...
and at least 38 Union regiments had the word "Irish" in their titles. 144,221 Union soldiers were born in Ireland; additionally, perhaps an equal number of Union soldiers were of Irish descent. Many immigrant soldiers formed their own regiments, such as the
Irish Brigade.
[Christian G. Samito, ''Becoming American under fire: Irish Americans, African Americans, and the politics of citizenship during the Civil War era'' (2009)][Susanna J. Ural, ''The heart and the Eagle: Irish-American volunteers and the Union army, 1861–1865'' (2006)] However, in proportion to the general population, the Irish were the most underrepresented immigrant group fighting for the Union.
However,
conscription
Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to Ancient history, antiquity and it continues in some countries to th ...
was resisted by many Irish as an imposition.
Two years into the war, the conscription law was passed in 1863, and
major draft riots erupted in New York. It coincided with the efforts of the city's dominant political machine,
Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
, to enroll Irish immigrants as citizens so they could vote in local elections. Many such immigrants suddenly discovered they were now expected to fight for their new country. The Irish, employed primarily as laborers, were usually unable to afford the $300 "commutation fee" to procure a replacement for service. Many of the Irish viewed blacks as competition for scarce jobs, and as the reason why the Civil War was being fought. African Americans who fell into the mob's hands were often beaten or killed.
[ Leslie M. Harris, ''In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863'', University of Chicago Press; 1 edition (February 2, 2003)] The Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue, which provided shelter for hundreds of children, was attacked by a mob. It was seen as a "symbol of white charity to blacks and of black upward mobility," reasons enough for its destruction at the hands of a predominantly Irish mob which looked upon African Americans as direct social and economic competitors. Fortunately, the largely Irish-American police force was able to secure the orphanage for enough time to allow orphans to escape.
30,000 Irish or Irish-descended men joined the Confederate Army.
Interestingly, Gleeson wrote that they had higher desertion rates than non-Irish, and sometimes switched sides, suggesting that their support for the Confederacy was tepid. During the
Reconstruction era
The Reconstruction era was a period in American history following the American Civil War (1861–1865) and lasting until approximately the Compromise of 1877. During Reconstruction, attempts were made to rebuild the country after the bloo ...
, however, some Irish took a strong position in favor of
white supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White ...
, and some played major roles in attacking blacks in riots in Memphis.
In 1871, New York's
Orange Riots
The Orange Riots took place in Manhattan, New York City, in 1870 and 1871, and they involved violent conflict between Irish Protestants who were members of the Orange Order and hence called "Orangemen", and Irish Catholics, along with the Ne ...
broke out when Irish Protestants celebrated the Williamite victory at the
Battle of the Boyne
The Battle of the Boyne ( ga, Cath na Bóinne ) was a battle in 1690 between the forces of the deposed King James II of England and Ireland, VII of Scotland, and those of King William III who, with his wife Queen Mary II (his cousin and J ...
by parading through Irish Catholic neighborhoods, taunting the residents who then responded with violence. Police Superintendent James J. Kelso, a Protestant, ordered the parade cancelled as a threat to public safety. Kelso was overruled by the governor, who ordered 5000 militia to protect the marchers. The Catholics attacked but were stopped by the militia and police, who opened fire killing about 63 Catholics.
![Twist-British-Tail](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Twist-British-Tail.jpg)
Relations between the U.S. and Britain were chilly during the 1860s as Americans resented instances of British and
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
support for the Confederacy during the Civil War. After the war American authorities looked the other way as Irish Catholic "
Fenian
The word ''Fenian'' () served as an umbrella term for the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) and their affiliate in the United States, the Fenian Brotherhood, secret political organisations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries dedicate ...
s" plotted and even attempted an invasion of Canada. The Fenians proved a failure, but Irish Catholic politicians (Who were a growing power in the
Democratic Party) demanded more independence for Ireland and made anti-British rhetoric—called "twisting the lion's tail"—a staple of election campaign appeals to the Irish Catholic vote.
![TheUsualIrishWayofDoingThings (cr)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/TheUsualIrishWayofDoingThings_%28cr%29.jpg)
Later immigrants mostly settled in industrial towns and cities of the
Northeast
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...
and
Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
where Irish American neighborhoods had previously been established.
The Irish were having a huge impact on America as a whole. In 1910, there were more people in New York City of Irish ancestry than
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
's whole population, and even today, many of these cities still retain a substantial Irish-American community. The best urban economic opportunities for unskilled Irish women and men included "factory and millwork, domestic service, and the physical labor of public work projects."
During the mid-1900s, immigrants from Ireland were coming to the U.S. for the same reasons as those before them; they came looking for jobs.
Social history in the United States
Religion and society
Religion has been important to the Irish American identity in America, and continues to play a major role in their communities. Surveys conducted since the 1970s have shown consistent majorities or pluralities of those who self-identify as being of Irish ancestry in the United States as also self-identifying as Protestants.
The Protestants' ancestors arrived primarily in the colonial era, while Catholics are primarily descended from immigrants of the 19th century. Irish leaders have been prominent in the Catholic Church in the United States for over 150 years. The Irish have been leaders in the
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...
and
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
traditions, as well.
Surveys in the 1990s show that of Americans who identify themselves as "Irish", 51% said they were Protestant and 36% identified as Catholic. In the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
, Protestants account for 73% of those claiming Irish origins, while Catholics account for 19%. In the
Northern United States
The Northern United States, commonly referred to as the American North, the Northern States, or simply the North, is a geographical or historical region of the United States.
History Early history
Before the 19th century westward expansion, the "N ...
, 45% of those claiming Irish origin are Catholic, while 39% are Protestant.
Irish Catholic and Ulster Protestant relations
Between 1607 and 1820, the majority of emigrants from Ireland to America were Protestants who were described simply as "Irish". The religious distinction became important after 1820, when large numbers of Irish Catholics began to emigrate to the United States. Some of the descendants of the colonial Irish Protestant settlers from
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
began thereafter to redefine themselves as "Scotch Irish", to stress their historic origins, and distanced themselves from Irish Catholics; others continued to call themselves Irish, especially in areas of the South which saw little Irish Catholic immigration. By 1830, Irish diaspora demographics had changed rapidly, with over 60% of all Irish settlers in the US being Catholics from rural areas of Ireland.
Some Protestant Irish immigrants became active in explicitly anti-Catholic organizations such as the
Orange Institution
The Loyal Orange Institution, commonly known as the Orange Order, is an international Protestant fraternal order based in Northern Ireland and primarily associated with Ulster Protestants, particularly those of Ulster Scots people, Ulster Sco ...
and the
American Protective Association. However, participation in the Orange Institution was never as large in the United States as it was in Canada.
In the early nineteenth century, the post-Revolutionary
republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
spirit of the new United States attracted exiled
United Irishmen
The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional reform, ...
such as
Theobald Wolf Tone and others, with the presidency of
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
exemplifying this attitude. Most Protestant Irish immigrants in the first several decades of the nineteenth century were those who held to the republicanism of the 1790s, and who were unable to accept Orangeism. Loyalists and Orangemen made up a minority of Irish Protestant immigrants to the United States during this period. Most of the Irish loyalist emigration was bound for
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a Province, part of The Canadas, British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North Americ ...
and the Canadian
Maritime provinces
The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% o ...
, where Orange lodges were able to flourish under the British flag.
By 1870, when there were about 930 Orange lodges in the Canadian province of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, there were only 43 in the entire eastern United States. These few American lodges were founded by newly arriving Protestant Irish immigrants in coastal cities such as Philadelphia and New York. These ventures were short-lived and of limited political and social impact, although there were specific instances of violence involving Orangemen between Catholic and Protestant Irish immigrants, such as the
Orange Riots
The Orange Riots took place in Manhattan, New York City, in 1870 and 1871, and they involved violent conflict between Irish Protestants who were members of the Orange Order and hence called "Orangemen", and Irish Catholics, along with the Ne ...
in New York City in 1824, 1870 and 1871.
The first "Orange riot" on record was in 1824, in
Abingdon Square
Abingdon Square Park is located in the New York City borough of Manhattan in Greenwich Village. The park is bordered by Eighth Avenue, Bank Street, Hudson Street and West 12th Street.
Abingdon Square Park is one of New York City's oldest par ...
, New York, resulting from a 12 July march. Several Orangemen were arrested and found guilty of inciting the riot. According to the State prosecutor in the court record, "the Orange celebration was until then unknown in the country." The immigrants involved were admonished: "In the United States the oppressed of all nations find an asylum, and all that is asked in return is that they become law-abiding citizens. Orangemen, Ribbonmen, and United Irishmen are alike unknown. They are all entitled to protection by the laws of the country."
![Orange Riot 1871 crop](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Orange_Riot_1871_crop.jpg)
The later
Orange Riots
The Orange Riots took place in Manhattan, New York City, in 1870 and 1871, and they involved violent conflict between Irish Protestants who were members of the Orange Order and hence called "Orangemen", and Irish Catholics, along with the Ne ...
of 1870 and 1871 killed nearly 70 people, and were fought out between Irish Protestant and Catholic immigrants. After this the activities of the Orange Order were banned for a time, the Order dissolved, and most members joined
Masonic
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
orders. After 1871, there were no more riots between Irish Catholics and Protestants.
America offered a new beginning, and "...most descendents of the Ulster Presbyterians of the eighteenth century and even many new Protestant Irish immigrants turned their backs on all associations with Ireland and melted into the American Protestant mainstream."
Catholics
Irish priests (especially
Dominicans,
Franciscan
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
s,
Augustinians
Augustinians are members of Christian religious orders that follow the Rule of Saint Augustine, written in about 400 AD by Augustine of Hippo. There are two distinct types of Augustinians in Catholic religious orders dating back to the 12th–1 ...
and
Capuchins
Capuchin can refer to:
*Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (; postnominal abbr. O.F.M. Cap.) is a religious order of Franciscan friars within the Catholic Church, one of Three " First Orders" that reformed from t ...
) came to the large cities of the East in the 1790s, and when new dioceses were erected in 1808 the
first bishop of New York was an Irishman in recognition of the contribution of the early Irish clergy.
Saint Patrick's Battalion
The Saint Patrick's Battalion ( es, Batallón de San Patricio, later reorganized as the Foreign Legion of Patricios) was a unit of 175 to several hundred (accounts vary) immigrants and expatriates of European descent who fought as part of the ...
(''San Patricios'') was a group of several hundred immigrant soldiers, the majority Irish, who deserted the U.S. Army during the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...
because of ill treatment or sympathetic leanings to fellow Mexican Catholics. They joined the Mexican army.
In
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
between 1810 and 1840 there had been serious tensions between the bishop and the laity who wanted to control the local parishes. By 1845, the Catholic population in Boston had increased to 30,000 from around 5,000 in 1825, due to the influx of Irish immigrants. With the appointment of John B. Fitzpatrick as bishop in 1845, tensions subsided as the increasingly Irish Catholic community grew to support Fitzpatrick's assertion of the bishop's control of parish government.
![Sanpatricioshang](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Sanpatricioshang.jpg)
In New York, Archbishop
John Hughes (1797–1864), an Irish immigrant himself, was deeply involved in "the Irish question"—Irish independence from
British rule
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was hims ...
. Hughes supported
Daniel O'Connell
Daniel O'Connell (I) ( ga, Dónall Ó Conaill; 6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847), hailed in his time as The Liberator, was the acknowledged political leader of Ireland's Roman Catholic majority in the first half of the 19th century. His mobilizat ...
's
Catholic emancipation
Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...
movement in Ireland, but rejected such radical and violent societies as the
Young Ireland
Young Ireland ( ga, Éire Óg, ) was a political and cultural movement in the 1840s committed to an all-Ireland struggle for independence and democratic reform. Grouped around the Dublin weekly ''The Nation'', it took issue with the compromise ...
ers and the
National Brotherhood. Hughes also disapproved of American Irish radical fringe groups, urging immigrants to assimilate themselves into American life while remaining patriotic to Ireland "only individually". In Hughes's view, a large-scale movement to form Irish settlements in the western United States was too
isolationist
Isolationism is a political philosophy advocating a national foreign policy that opposes involvement in the political affairs, and especially the wars, of other countries. Thus, isolationism fundamentally advocates neutrality and opposes entan ...
and ultimately detrimental to immigrants' success in the New World.
In the 1840s, Hughes campaigned for publicly funded schools for Catholic immigrants from Ireland modelled after the successful
Irish public school system in
Lowell, Massachusetts
Lowell () is a city in Massachusetts, in the United States. Alongside Cambridge, It is one of two traditional seats of Middlesex County. With an estimated population of 115,554 in 2020, it was the fifth most populous city in Massachusetts as ...
. Hughes made speeches denouncing the
Public School Society of New York
In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...
, which mandated that all educational institutions use the
King James Bible
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of ...
, an unacceptable proposition to Catholics. The dispute between Catholics and Protestants over the funding of schools led the
New York Legislature
The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an official te ...
to pass the
Maclay Act Maclay may refer to:
Institutions
* Maclay School, PK–12 private school in Tallahassee, Florida
* Claremont School of Theology, formerly the Maclay School of Theology, Claremont, California
* Maclays Brewery, brewery in Alloa, Scotland
Places
...
in 1842, giving New York City an elective Board of Education empowered to build and supervise schools and distribute the education fund—but with the proviso that none of the money should go to schools which taught religion. Hughes responded by building an elaborate
parochial school
A parochial school is a private primary or secondary school affiliated with a religious organization, and whose curriculum includes general religious education in addition to secular subjects, such as science, mathematics and language arts. The wo ...
system that stretched to the college level, setting a policy followed in other large cities. Efforts to get city or state funding failed because of vehement Protestant opposition to a system that rivaled the public schools.
In the west, Catholic Irish were having a large effect as well. The open west attracted many Irish immigrants. Many of these immigrants were Catholic. When they migrated west, they would form "little pockets" with other Irish immigrants.
Irish Catholic communities were made in "supportive, village style neighborhoods centered around a Catholic church and called 'parishes'".
These neighborhoods affected the overall lifestyle and atmosphere of the communities. Other ways religion played a part in these towns was the fact that many were started by Irish Catholic priests. Father Bernard Donnelly started "Town of Kansas" which would later become Kansas City. His influence over early stages Kansas City was great, and so the Catholic religion was spread to other settlers who arrived.
While not all settlers became Catholics, a great number of the early settlers were Catholic. In other western communities, Irish priests wanted to convert the Native Americans to Catholicism.
These Catholic Irish would contribute not only to the growth of Catholic population in America, but to the values and traditions in America.
Jesuits
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
established a network of colleges in major cities, including
Boston College
Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classified ...
,
Fordham University
Fordham University () is a private Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its original campus is located, Fordham is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit un ...
in New York, and
Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private research university in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 as Georgetown College, the university has grown to comprise eleven undergraduate and graduate ...
in
Washington, D.C. Fordham was founded in 1841 and attracted students from other regions of the United States, and even South America and the
Caribbean
The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...
. At first exclusively a
liberal arts
Liberal arts education (from Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...
institution, it built a science building in 1886, lending more legitimacy to science in the curriculum there. In addition, a three-year
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
degree was created. Boston College, by contrast, was established over twenty years later in 1863 to appeal to urban Irish Catholics. It offered a rather limited intellectual curriculum, however, with the priests at Boston College prioritizing spiritual and sacramental activities over intellectual pursuits. One consequence was that
Harvard Law School
Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States.
Each c ...
would not admit Boston College graduates to its law school. Modern Jesuit leadership in American academia was not to become their hallmark across all institutions until the 20th century.
The Irish became prominent in the leadership of the Catholic Church in the U.S. by the 1850s—by 1890 there were 7.3 million Catholics in the U.S. and growing, and most bishops were Irish. As late as the 1970s, when Irish were 17% of American Catholics, they were 35% of the priests and 50% of the bishops, together with a similar proportion of presidents of Catholic colleges and hospitals.
Protestants
The
Scots-Irish who settled in the back country of colonial America were largely
Presbyterian
Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their n ...
s. The establishment of many settlements in the remote back-country put a strain on the ability of the Presbyterian Church to meet the new demand for qualified, college-educated clergy.
Religious groups such as the
Baptists
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul com ...
and
Methodist
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...
s did not require higher education of their ministers, so they could more readily supply ministers to meet the demand of the growing Scots-Irish settlements.
[ By about 1810, Baptist and Methodist churches were in the majority, and the descendants of the Scotch-Irish today remain predominantly Baptist or Methodist. They were avid participants in the revivals taking place during the ]Great Awakening
Great Awakening refers to a number of periods of religious revival in American Christian history. Historians and theologians identify three, or sometimes four, waves of increased religious enthusiasm between the early 18th century and the lat ...
from the 1740s to the 1840s. They take pride in their Irish heritage because they identify with the values ascribed to the Scotch-Irish who played a major role in the American Revolution and in the development of American culture.[
]
=Presbyterians
=
The first Presbyterian community in America was established in 1640 in Southampton, Long Island New York. Francis Makemie
Francis Makemie (1658–1708) was an Ulster Scots clergyman, considered to be the founder of Presbyterianism in the United States of America.
Early and family life
Makemie was born in Ramelton, County Donegal, Ireland (part of the Province o ...
, an Irish Presbyterian immigrant later established churches in Maryland and Virginia. Makemie was born and raised near Ramelton
Ramelton (; ), also Rathmelton, is a town and townland in County Donegal, Ireland. , its population was 1,266.
History
Ramelton is situated at the mouth of the River Lennon, 11 km north of Letterkenny and 4 km south of Milford, on ...
, County Donegal
County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrcon ...
, to Ulster Scots parents. He was educated in the University of Glasgow
, image = UofG Coat of Arms.png
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of arms
Flag
, latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis
, motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita
, ...
and set out to organize and initiate the construction of several Presbyterian Churches throughout Maryland and Virginia. By 1706, Makemie and his followers constructed a Presbyterian Church in Rehobeth, Maryland
Rehobeth is an unincorporated community in Somerset County, Maryland, United States. It is located at the east end of Old Rehobeth Road, off Rehobeth Road, on the bank of the Pocomoke River. Caldicott, Coventry Parish Ruins, and Rehobeth Presb ...
. In 1707, after traveling to New York to establish a presbytery, Francis Makemie was charged with preaching without a license by the English immigrant and Governor of New York, Edward Hyde. Makemie won a vital victory for the fight of religious freedom for Scots-Irish immigrants when he was acquitted and gained recognition for having "stood up to Anglican authorities". Makemie became one of the wealthiest immigrants to colonial America, owning more than 5,000 acres and 33 slaves.
New Light Presbyterians founded the College of New Jersey, later renamed Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, in 1746 in order to train ministers dedicated to their views. The college was the educational and religious capital of Scots-Irish America. By 1808, loss of confidence in the college within the Presbyterian Church led to the establishment of the separate Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary (PTSem), officially The Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, is a private school of theology in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1812 under the auspices of Archibald Alexander, the General Assembly of t ...
, but deep Presbyterian influence at the college continued through the 1910s, as typified by university president Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
.
Out on the frontier, the Scots-Irish Presbyterians of the Muskingum Valley in Ohio
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
established Muskingum College at New Concord, Ohio, New Concord in 1837. It was led by two clergymen, Samuel Wilson and Benjamin Waddle, who served as trustees, president, and professors during the first few years. During the 1840s and 1850s the college survived the rapid turnover of very young presidents who used the post as a stepping stone in their clerical careers, and in the late 1850s it weathered a storm of student protest. Under the leadership of L. B. W. Shryock during the Civil War, Muskingum gradually evolved from a local and locally controlled institution to one serving the entire Muskingum Valley. It is still affiliated with the Presbyterian church.
Brought up in a Scots-Irish Presbyterian home, Cyrus McCormick of Chicago developed a strong sense of devotion to the Presbyterian Church. Throughout his later life, he used the wealth gained through invention of the mechanical reaper to further the work of the church. His benefactions were responsible for the establishment in Chicago of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of the Northwest (after his death renamed the McCormick Theological Seminary of the Presbyterian Church). He assisted the Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. He also supported a series of religious publications, beginning with the ''Presbyterian Expositor'' in 1857 and ending with the ''Interior'' (later called ''The Continent''), which his widow continued until her death.
=Methodists
=
Irish immigrants were the first immigrant group to America to build and organize Methodist churches. Many of the early Irish immigrants who did so came from a German-Irish background. Barbara Heck, an Irish woman of German descent from County Limerick, Ireland, immigrated to America in 1760, with her husband, Paul. She is often considered to be the "Mother of American Methodism." Heck guided and mentored her cousin, Philip Embury, who was also an "Irish Palatine" immigrant. Heck and Embury constructed the John Street Methodist Church, which today is usually recognized as the oldest Methodist Church in the United States. However, another church constructed by prominent Irish Methodist immigrant, Robert Strawbridge, may have preceded the John Street Methodist Church.
Women
The Irish people were the first of many to immigrate to the U.S. in mass waves, including large groups of single young women between the ages of 16 and 24. Up until this point, free women who settled in the colonies mostly came after their husbands had already made the journey and could afford their trip, or were brought over to be married to an eligible colonist who paid for their journey. Many Irish fled their home country to escape unemployment and starvation during the Great Irish Famine. The richest of the Irish resettled in England, where their skilled work was greatly accepted, but lower class Irish and women could find little work in Western Europe, leading them to cross the Atlantic in search of greater financial opportunities.
Some Irish women resorted to prostitution in large cities such as Boston and New York City. They were often arrested for intoxication, public lewdness, and petty larceny. Most of the single Irish women preferred service labor as a form of income. These women made a higher wage than most by serving the middle and high-class in their own homes as nannies, cooks and cleaners. The wages for domestic service were higher than that of factory workers and they lived in the attics of upscale mansions. By 1870, forty percent of Irish women worked as domestic servants in New York City, making them over fifty percent of the service industry at the time.
Prejudices ran deep in the north and could be seen in newspaper cartoons depicting Irish men as hot-headed, violent drunkards. The initial backlash the Irish received in America lead to their self-imposed seclusion, making assimilation into society a long and painful process.
Language
Down to the end of the 19th century a large number of Irish immigrants arrived speaking Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
as their first language. This continued to be the case with immigrants from certain counties even in the 20th century. The Irish language was first mentioned as being spoken in North America in the 17th century. Large numbers of Irish emigrated to America throughout the 18th century, bringing the language with them, and it was particularly strong in Pennsylvania. It was also widely spoken in such places as New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, where it proved a useful recruiting tool for Loyalists during the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
.
Irish speakers continued to arrive in large numbers throughout the 19th century, particularly after the Famine. There was a certain amount of literacy in Irish, as shown by the many Irish-language manuscripts which immigrants brought with them. In 1881 ''An Gaodhal'' was founded, being the first newspaper in the world to be largely in Irish. It continued to be published into the 20th century, and now has an online successor in ''An Gael'', an international literary magazine. A number of Irish immigrant newspapers in the 19th and 20th centuries had Irish language columns.
Irish immigrants fell into three linguistic categories: monolingual Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
speakers, bilingual speakers of both Irish and English, and monolingual English speakers. Estimates indicate that there were around 400,000 Irish speakers in the United States in the 1890s, located primarily in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
and Yonkers, New York, Yonkers. The Irish-speaking population of New York reached its height in this period, when speakers of Irish numbered between 70,000 and 80,000. This number declined during the early 20th century, dropping to 40,000 in 1939, 10,000 in 1979, and 5,000 in 1995.
According to the 2000 census, the Irish language ranks 66th out of the 322 languages spoken today in the U.S., with over 25,000 speakers. New York state has the most Irish speakers of the 50 states, and Massachusetts the highest percentage.
Daltaí na Gaeilge, a nonprofit Irish language advocacy group based in Elberon, New Jersey, estimated that about 30,000 people spoke the language in America as of 2006. This, the organization claimed, was a remarkable increase from only a few thousand at the time of the group's founding in 1981.
Occupations
Before 1800, significant numbers of Irish Protestant immigrants became farmers; many headed to the frontier where land was cheap or free and it was easier to start a farm or herding operation. Many Irish Protestants and Catholics alike were indentured servants, unable to pay their own passage or sentenced to servitude.
After 1840, most Irish Catholic immigrants went directly to the cities, mill towns, and railroad or canal construction sites on the East Coast of the United States, East Coast. In upstate New York, the Great Lakes area, the Midwest
The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...
and the American frontier, Far West, many became farmers or ranchers. In the East, male Irish laborers were hired by Irish contractors to work on canals, railroads, streets, sewers and other construction projects, particularly in New York (state), New York state and New England
New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces ...
. The Irish men also worked in these labor positions in the mid-west. They worked to construct towns where there had been none previously. Kansas City was one such town, and eventually became an important cattle town and railroad center.
Labor positions were not the only occupations for Irish, though. Some moved to New England mill towns, such as Holyoke, Massachusetts, Holyoke, Lowell, Massachusetts, Lowell, Taunton, Massachusetts, Taunton, Brockton, Massachusetts, Brockton, Fall River, Massachusetts, Fall River, and Milford, Massachusetts, where owners of textile mills welcomed the new, low-wage workers. They took the jobs previously held by Yankee women known as Lowell girls. A large percentage of Irish Catholic women took jobs as maids in hotels and private households.
Large numbers of unemployed or very poor Irish Catholics lived in squalid conditions in the new city slums and tenements.
Single, Irish immigrant women quickly assumed jobs in high demand but for very low pay. The majority of them worked in mills, factories, and private households and were considered the bottommost group in the female job hierarchy, alongside African American women. Workers considered mill work in cotton textiles and needle trades the least desirable because of the dangerous and unpleasant conditions. Factory work was primarily a worst-case scenario for widows or daughters of families already involved in the industry.
Unlike many other immigrants, Irish women preferred domestic work because it was constantly in great demand among middle- and upper-class American households. Although wages differed across the country, they were consistently higher than those of the other occupations available to Irish women and could often be negotiated because of the lack of competition. Also, the working conditions in well-off households were significantly better than those of factories or mills, and free room and board allowed domestic servants to save money or send it back to their families in Ireland.
Despite some of the benefits of domestic work, Irish women's job requirements were difficult and demeaning. Subject to their employers around the clock, Irish women cooked, cleaned, babysat and more. Because most servants lived in the home where they worked, they were separated from their communities. Most of all, the American stigma on domestic work suggested that Irish women were failures who had "about the same intelligence as that of an old grey-headed negro." This quote illustrates how, in a period of extreme Racism in the United States, racism towards African Americans, society similarly viewed Irish immigrants as inferior beings.
Although the Irish Catholics started very low on the social status scale, by 1900 they had jobs and earnings about equal on average to their neighbors. This was largely due to their ability to speak English when they arrived. The Irish were able to rise quickly within the working world, unlike non-English speaking immigrants. Yet there were still many shanty and lower working class communities in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and other parts of the country.
After 1945, the Catholic Irish consistently ranked at the top of the social hierarchy, thanks especially to their high rate of college attendance, and due to that many Irish American men have risen to higher socio-economic table.[Greeley (1988), p. 1.]
Local government
In the 19th century, jobs in local government were distributed by politicians to their supporters, and with significant strength in city hall the Irish became candidates for positions in all departments, such as police departments, fire departments, public schools and other public services of major cities. In 1897 New York City was formed by consolidating its five boroughs. That created 20,000 new patronage jobs. New York invested heavily in large-scale public works. This produced thousands of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in subways, street railways, waterworks, and port facilities. Over half the Irish men employed by the city worked in utilities. Across all ethnic groups In New York City, municipal employment grew from 54,000 workers in 1900 to 148,000 in 1930. In New York City, Albany, and Jersey City, about one third of the Irish of the first and second generation had municipal jobs in 1900.
Police
By 1855, according to New York Police Commissioner George W. Matsell (1811–1877), almost 17 percent of the police department's officers were Irish-born (compared to 28.2 percent of the city) in a report to the New York City Council, Board of Aldermen; of the NYPD's 1,149 men, Irish-born officers made up 304 of 431 foreign-born policemen. In the 1860s more than half of those arrested in New York City were Irish born or of Irish descent but nearly half of the city's law enforcement officers were also Irish. By the turn of the 20th century, five out of six NYPD officers were Irish born or of Irish descent. As late as the 1960s, 42% of the NYPD were Irish Americans.
Up to the 20th and early 21st century, Irish Catholics continue to be prominent in the law enforcement community, especially in the Northeastern United States. The Emerald Society, an Irish American fraternal organization, was founded in 1953 by the NYPD. When the Boston chapter of the Emerald Society formed in 1973, half of the Boston Police Department, city's police officers became members.
Teachers
Towards the end of the 19th century, schoolteaching became the most desirable occupation for the second generation of female Irish immigrants. Teaching was similar to domestic work for the first generation of Irish immigrants in that it was a popular job and one that relied on a woman's decision to remain unmarried. The disproportionate number of Irish-American Catholic women who entered the job market as teachers in the late 19th century and early 20th century from Boston to San Francisco was a beneficial result of the Irish National school (Ireland), National school system. Irish schools prepared young single women to support themselves in a new country, which inspired them to instill the importance of education, college training, and a profession in their American-born daughters even more than in their sons.
Evidence from schools in New York City illustrate the upward trend of Irish women as teachers: "as early as 1870, twenty percent of all schoolteachers were Irish women, and...by 1890 Irish females comprised two-thirds of those in the Sixth Ward schools." Irish women attained admirable reputations as schoolteachers, which enabled some to pursue professions of even higher stature.
Nuns
Upon arrival in the United States, many Irish women became nun, Catholic nuns and participated in the many American sisterhoods, especially those in St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
in Missouri, Saint Paul, Minnesota, St. Paul in Minnesota, and Troy, New York, Troy in New York. Additionally, the women who settled in these communities were often sent back to Ireland to recruit. This kind of religious lifestyle appealed to Irish female immigrants because they outnumbered their male counterparts and the Irish cultural tendency to postpone marriage often promoted gender separation and celibacy. Furthermore, "the Catholic church, clergy, and women religious were highly respected in Ireland," making the sisterhoods particularly attractive to Irish immigrants.
Nuns provided extensive support for Irish immigrants in large cities, especially in fields such as nursing and teaching but also through orphanages, widows' homes, and housing for young, single women in domestic work. Although many Irish communities built parish schools run by nuns, the majority of Irish parents in large cities in the East enrolled their children in the public school system, where daughters or granddaughters of Irish immigrants had already established themselves as teachers.
Discrimination
Anti-Irish sentiment was rampant in the United States during the 19th and early 20th Century. Rising Nativism (politics), Nativist sentiments among Protestant Americans in the 1850s led to increasing discrimination against Irish Americans. Prejudice against Irish Catholics in the U.S. reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the Know Nothing Movement, which tried to oust Catholics from public office. After a year or two of local success, the Know Nothing Party vanished.
Catholics and Protestants kept their distance; intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants was uncommon, and strongly discouraged by both Protestant ministers and Catholic priests. As Dolan notes, "'Mixed marriages', as they were called, were allowed in rare cases, though warned against repeatedly, and were uncommon." Rather, intermarriage was primarily with other ethnic groups who shared their religion. Irish Catholics, for example, would commonly intermarry with German Catholics or Poles in the Midwest and Italians in the Northeast.
Irish-American journalists "scoured the cultural landscape for evidence of insults directed at the Irish in America." Much of what historians know about hostility to the Irish comes from their reports in Irish and in Democratic newspapers.
While the parishes were struggling to build parochial schools, many Catholic children attended public schools. The Protestant King James Version of the Bible was widely used in public schools, but Catholics were forbidden by their church from reading or reciting from it. Many Irish children complained that Catholicism was openly mocked in the classroom. In New York City, the curriculum vividly portrayed Catholics, and specifically the Irish, as villainous.
The Catholic archbishop John Hughes (archbishop of New York), John Hughes, an immigrant to America from County Tyrone, Ireland, campaigned for public funding of History of Catholic education in the United States, Catholic education in response to the bigotry. While never successful in obtaining public money for private education, the debate with the city's Protestant elite spurred by Hughes' passionate campaign paved the way for the secularization of public education nationwide. In addition, List of Roman Catholic universities and colleges in the United States, Catholic higher education expanded during this period with colleges and universities that evolved into such institutions as Fordham University
Fordham University () is a private Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its original campus is located, Fordham is the oldest Catholic and Jesuit un ...
and Boston College
Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classified ...
providing alternatives to Irish who were not otherwise permitted to apply to other colleges.
Many Irish work gangs were hired by contractors to build canals, railroads, city streets and sewers across the country. In the South, they underbid slave labor. One result was that small cities that served as railroad centers came to have large Irish populations.
In 1895, the Knights of Equity was founded, to combat discrimination against Irish Catholics in the U.S., and to assist them financially when needed.
Stereotypes
Irish Catholics were popular targets for stereotyping in the 19th century. According to historian George Potter, the media often stereotyped the Irish in America as being boss-controlled, violent (both among themselves and with those of other ethnic groups), voting illegally, prone to alcoholism and dependent on street gangs that were often violent or criminal. Potter quotes contemporary newspaper images:
You will scarcely ever find an Irishman dabbling in counterfeit money, or breaking into houses, or swindling; but if there is any fighting to be done, he is very apt to have a hand in it." Even though Pat might "'meet with a friend and for love knock him down,'" noted a Montreal paper, the fighting usually resulted from a sudden excitement, allowing there was "but little 'malice prepense' in his whole composition." The ''Catholic Telegraph'' of Cincinnati in 1853, saying that the "name of 'Irish' has become identified in the minds of many, with almost every species of outlawry," distinguished the Irish vices as "not of a deep malignant nature," arising rather from the "transient burst of undisciplined passion," like "drunk, disorderly, fighting, etc., not like robbery, cheating, swindling, counterfeiting, slandering, calumniating, blasphemy, using obscene language, &c.[Potter (1960), p. 526.]
The Irish had many humorists of their own, but were scathingly attacked in political cartoons, especially those in Puck (magazine), ''Puck'' magazine from the 1870s to 1900; it was edited by secular Germans who opposed the Catholic Irish in politics. In addition, the cartoons of Thomas Nast were especially hostile; for example, he depicted the Irish-dominated Tammany Hall
Tammany Hall, also known as the Society of St. Tammany, the Sons of St. Tammany, or the Columbian Order, was a New York City political organization founded in 1786 and incorporated on May 12, 1789 as the Tammany Society. It became the main loc ...
machine in New York City as a ferocious tiger.
The stereotype of the Irish as violent drunks has lasted well beyond its high point in the mid-19th century. For example, President Richard Nixon once told advisor Charles Colson that "[t]he Irish have certain — for example, the Irish can't drink. What you always have to remember with the Irish is they get mean. Virtually every Irish I've known gets mean when he drinks. Particularly the real Irish."
Discrimination against Irish Americans differed depending on gender. For example, Irish women were sometimes stereotyped as "reckless breeders" because some American Protestants feared high Catholic birth rates would eventually result in a Protestant minority. Many native-born Americans claimed that "their incessant childbearing [would] ensure an Irish political takeover of American cities [and that] Catholicism would become the reigning faith of the hitherto Protestant nation." Irish men were also targeted, but in a different way than women were. The difference between the Irish female "Bridget" and the Irish male "Pat" was distinct; while she was impulsive but fairly harmless, he was "always drunk, eternally fighting, lazy, and shiftless". In contrast to the view that Irish women were shiftless, slovenly and stupid (like their male counterparts), girls were said to be "industrious, willing, cheerful, and honest—they work hard, and they are very strictly moral".
There were also Social Darwinian-inspired excuses for the discrimination of the Irish in America. Many Americans believed that since the Irish were Celts and not Anglo-Saxons, they were racially inferior and deserved second-class citizenship. The Irish being of inferior intelligence was a belief held by many Americans. This notion was held due to the fact that the Irish topped the charts demographically in terms of arrests and imprisonment. They also had more people confined to insane asylums and poorhouses than any other group. The racial supremacy belief that many Americans had at the time contributed significantly to Irish discrimination.
From the 1860s onwards, Irish Americans were stereotyped as terrorists and gangsters, although this stereotyping began to diminish by the end of the 19th century.
Contributions to American culture
The annual celebration of Saint Patrick's Day is a widely recognized symbol of the Irish presence in America. The largest celebration of the holiday takes place in New York, where the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade draws an average of two million people. The second-largest celebration is held in Boston. The South Boston Parade is one of the USA's oldest, dating back to 1737. Savannah, Georgia, also holds one of the largest parades in the United States.
Since the arrival of nearly two million Irish immigrants in the 1840s, the urban Irish police officer and firefighter have become virtual icons of American popular culture. In many large cities, the police and fire departments have been dominated by the Irish for over 100 years, even after the ethnic Irish residential populations in those cities dwindled to small minorities. Many police and fire departments maintain large and active "Emerald Society, Emerald Societies", bagpipe marching groups, or other similar units demonstrating their members' pride in their Irish heritage.
While these archetypal images are especially well known, Irish Americans have contributed to U.S. culture in a wide variety of fields: the fine and performing arts, film, literature, politics, sports, and religion. The Irish-American contribution to popular entertainment is reflected in the careers of figures such as James Cagney, Bing Crosby, Walt Disney, John Ford, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Grace Kelly, Tyrone Power, Chuck Connors, Ada Rehan, Jena Malone, and Spencer Tracy. Irish-born actress Maureen O'Hara, who became an American citizen, defined for U.S. audiences the archetypal, feisty Irish "colleen" in popular films such as ''The Quiet Man'' and ''The Long Gray Line''. More recently, the Irish-born Pierce Brosnan gained screen celebrity as James Bond. During the early years of television, popular figures with Irish roots included Gracie Allen, Art Carney, Joe Flynn (US actor), Joe Flynn, Jackie Gleason, Luke Gordon and Ed Sullivan.
Since the late days of the film industry, celluloid representations of Irish Americans have been plentiful. Famous films with Irish-American themes include social dramas such as ''Little Nellie Kelly'' and ''The Cardinal'', labor epics like ''On the Waterfront'', and gangster movies such as ''Angels with Dirty Faces'', ''The Friends of Eddie Coyle'', and ''The Departed''. Irish-American characters have been featured in popular television series such as ''Ryan's Hope'', ''Rescue Me (U.S. TV series), Rescue Me'' and ''Blue Bloods (TV series), Blue Bloods''.
Prominent Irish-American literary figures include Pulitzer Prize, Pulitzer and Nobel Prize–winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, Jazz Age novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, author and poet Edgar Allan Poe, social realist James T. Farrell, Southern Gothic writers Flannery O'Connor and Cormac McCarthy. The 19th-century novelist Henry James was also of partly Irish descent. While Irish Americans have been underrepresented in the plastic arts, two well-known American painters claim Irish roots. 20th-century painter Georgia O'Keeffe was born to an Irish-American father, and 19th-century trompe-l'œil painter William Harnett emigrated from Ireland to the United States.
The Irish-American contribution to politics spans the entire ideological spectrum. Two prominent American socialists, Mary Harris Jones, Mary Harris "Mother" Jones and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, were Irish Americans. In the 1960s, Irish-American writer Michael Harrington became an influential advocate of social welfare programs. Harrington's views profoundly influenced President John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, Irish-American political writer William F. Buckley emerged as a major intellectual force in American conservative politics in the latter half of the 20th century. Buckley's magazine, ''National Review'', proved an effective advocate of successful Republican Party (United States), Republican candidates such as Ronald Reagan.
Notorious Irish Americans include the legendary New Mexico outlaw Billy the Kid.[Wallis (2007), p. 6.][Utley (1989), p. 2.] Many historians believe he was born in New York City to Famine-era immigrants from Ireland. Mary Mallon, also known as ''Typhoid Mary'', was an Irish immigrant, as was Procuring (prostitution), madam Josephine Airey, who also went by the name of "Chicago Joe" Hensley. socialite and murderer Delphine LaLaurie, whose maiden name was Macarty, was of partial paternal Irish ancestry. Irish Mob, Irish-American mobsters include, amongst others, Dean O'Banion, Legs Diamond, Jack "Legs" Diamond, James McLean (mobster), Buddy McLean, Howie Winter and Whitey Bulger. Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of John F. Kennedy, had an Irish-born great-grandmother by the name of Mary Tonry. Colorful Irish Americans also include Margaret Brown, Margaret Tobin of ''RMS Titanic'' fame, scandalous model Evelyn Nesbit, dancer Isadora Duncan, San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
madam Tessie Wall, and Nellie Cashman, nurse and gold prospector in the American West.
Music
The wide popularity of Celtic music has fostered the rise of Irish-American bands that draw heavily on traditional Irish themes and music. Such groups include New York City's Black 47, founded in the late 1980s, blending punk rock, rock and roll, Irish music, rap/hip hop music, hip-hop, reggae, and soul music, soul; and the Dropkick Murphys, a Celtic punk band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts, nearly a decade later. The Decemberists, a band featuring Irish-American singer Colin Meloy, released "Shankill Butchers", a song that deals with the Ulster loyalism, Ulster Loyalist Shankill Butchers, gang of the same name. The song appears on their album ''The Crane Wife''. Flogging Molly, led by Dublin-born Dave King (Irish singer), Dave King, are relative newcomers building upon this new tradition.
Food
Irish immigrants brought many traditional Irish recipes with them when they emigrated to the United States, which they adapted to meet the different ingredients available to them there. Irish Americans introduced foods like soda bread and colcannon to American cuisine. The famous Irish American meal of corned beef and cabbage was developed by Irish immigrants in the U.S., who adapted it from the traditional Irish recipe for bacon and cabbage. Irish beer such as Guinness is widely consumed in the United States, including an estimated 13 million pints on Saint Patrick's Day alone.
Sports
Starting with the sons of the famine generation, the Irish dominated baseball and boxing, and played a major role in other sports.
Famous in their day were NFL quarterbacks and Super Bowl champions John Elway and Tom Brady, NBA forward Rick Barry, tennis greats Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe, baseball pitcher Nolan Ryan, baseball shortstop Derek Jeter, basketball point guard Jason Kidd, boxing legend Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali, world champion pro surfer Kelly Slater, national champion skier Ryan Max Riley, and legendary golfer Ben Hogan.
The Irish dominated professional baseball in the late 19th century, making up a third or more of the players and many of the top stars and managers. The professional teams played in northeastern cities with large Irish populations that provided a fan base, as well as training for ambitious youth. Casway argues that:
Irish stars included Charles Comiskey, Connie Mack, King Kelly, Michael "King" Kelly, Roger Connor, Eddie Collins, Roger Bresnahan, Ed Walsh and New York Giants manager John McGraw. The large 1945 class of inductees enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown included nine Irish Americans.
The Philadelphia Phillies always play at home during Grapefruit League, spring training on St. Patrick's Day. The Phillies hold the distinction of being the first baseball team to wear green uniforms on St. Patricks Day. The tradition was started by Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw, who dyed his uniform green the night before March 17, 1981.
John L. Sullivan (1858–1918), The heavyweight boxing champion, was the first of the modern sports superstars, winning scores of contests – perhaps as many as 200—with a purse that reached the fabulous sum of one million dollars.
The Irish brought their native games of Gaelic handball, handball, hurling and Gaelic football to America. Along with camogie, these sports are part of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The North American GAA organization is still strong, with 128 clubs across its ten divisions.
Entertainment
Irish Americans have been prominent in comedy. Notable comedians of Irish descent include Jimmy Dore, Jackie Gleason, George Carlin, Bill Burr, Bill Murray, Will Ferrell, Bryan Callen, Pete Holmes, Joe Rogan, Ben Stiller, Chris Farley, Stephen Colbert, Conan O'Brien, Denis Leary (holds dual American and Irish citizenship), Colin Quinn, Charles Nelson Reilly, Bill Maher, Molly Shannon, John Mulaney, Kathleen Madigan, Jimmy Fallon, Des Bishop, and Jim Gaffigan, among others.
Musicians of Irish descent include Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson, Kurt Cobain, Bing Crosby, Tori Kelly, Tim McGraw, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff, Fergie (singer), Fergie, Jerry Garcia, Judy Garland, Katy Perry, Tom Petty, Pink (singer), Pink, Bruce Springsteen, Gwen Stefani, Lindsay Lohan, Post Malone, Trippie Redd and others.
Fictional Irish Americans:
In the Comic Strips:
*Maggie and Jiggs of Bringing Up Father
*Police Chief Pat Patton of Dick Tracy
*Beetle Bailey and his sister Lous Flagston of Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois
Sense of heritage
Many people of Irish descent retain a sense of their Irish heritage. Article 2 of the Constitution of Ireland formally recognizes and embraces this fact: ...the Irish Nation cherishes its special affinity with people of Irish ancestry living abroad who share its cultural identity and heritage.
Irish independence from the United Kingdom encouraged the hope that descendants of Irish abroad who had retained a cultural connection and identified with Ireland would resettle there, as opposed to attracting immigrants from other cultures in other countries. One member of an Irish government of the Irish Free State expressed his hope as follows:
I do not think [the Irish Free State] will afford sufficient allurements to the citizens of other States ... The children of Irish parents born abroad are sometimes more Irish than the Irish themselves, and they would come with added experience and knowledge to our country...., 4=Sen. Patrick W. Kenny, Patrick Kenny, Seanad Éireann 1924,
A sense of exile, Irish diaspora, diaspora, and (in the case of songs) even nostalgia is a common theme. The modern term "Plastic Paddy" generally refers to someone who was not born in Ireland and is separated from his closest Irish-born ancestor by several generations but still considers themselves "Irish". It is occasionally used in a derogatory fashion towards Irish Americans, in an attempt to cast doubt the "Irishness" of the Irish diaspora based on nationality and (citizenship) rather than ethnicity. The term is freely applied to relevant people of all nationalities, not solely Irish Americans.
Some Irish Americans were enthusiastic supporters of Irish independence; the Fenian Brotherhood movement was based in the United States and in the late 1860s launched several unsuccessful attacks on British-controlled Canada known as the "Fenian Raids". The Provisional IRA received significant funding and volunteers for its paramilitary activities from Irish expatriates and Irish American supporters—in 1984, the United States Department of Justice, US Department of Justice won a court case forcing the Irish American fund-raising organization NORAID to acknowledge the Provisional IRA as its "foreign principal".
Cities
The vast majority of Irish Catholic Americans settled in large and small cities across the North, particularly railroad centers and mill towns. They became perhaps the most urbanized group in America, as few became farmers. Areas that retain a significant Irish American population include the metropolitan areas of Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford, Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
, Buffalo, Albany, New York, Albany, Syracuse, New York, Syracuse, Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
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, subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...
, Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...
, San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, Savannah, and Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...
, where most new arrivals of the 1830–1910 period settled. As a percentage of the population, Massachusetts is the most Irish state, with about a fifth, 21.2%, of the population claiming Irish descent.
The most Irish American towns in the United States are Scituate, Massachusetts, with 47.5% of its residents being of Irish descent; Milton, Massachusetts, with 44.6% of its 26,000 being of Irish descent; and Braintree, Massachusetts, with 46.5% of its 34,000 being of Irish descent. (Weymouth, Massachusetts, at 39% of its 54,000 citizens, and Quincy, Massachusetts, at 34% of its population of 90,000, are the two most Irish ''cities'' in the country. Squantum (Quincy, Massachusetts), Squantum, a peninsula in the northern part of Quincy, is the most Irish neighborhood in the country, with close to 60% of its 2600 residents claiming Irish descent.)
Philadelphia, Boston, New York, and Chicago have historically had neighborhoods with higher percentages of Irish American residents. Regionally, the most Irish American states are Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut, according to the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey in 2013. In consequence of its unique history as a mining center, Butte, Montana, is also one of the country's most thoroughly Irish American cities. Smaller towns, such as Greeley, Nebraska (population 466), with an estimated 51.7% of the residents identifying as Irish American as of 2009–13 were part of the Irish Catholic Colonization effort of Bishop O'Connor of New York in the 1880s.
The states with the top percentages of Irish:
* Massachusetts (22.5%)
* New Hampshire (20.5%)
* Rhode Island (18.4%)
* Maine (18.0%)
* Vermont (18.0%)
* Delaware (16.7%)
* Pennsylvania (16.6%)
* Connecticut (16.6%)
* New Jersey (15.9%)
* West Virginia (14.8%)
* Montana (14.8%)
* Iowa (13.6%)
* Ohio
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
(13.5%)
* Nebraska (13.4%)
* Wyoming (13.3%)
* Missouri
Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...
(13.2%)
* New York (state), New York (12.9%)
* Kansas (12.4%)
* Illinois (12.2%)
* Colorado (12.2%)
* Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
(12.2%)
* Oregon (12.1%)
* Maryland (11.7%)
* Indiana (11.6%)
* Oklahoma (11.5%)
* Washington (state), Washington (11.4%)
* Minnesota (11.2%)
* Michigan (11.0%)
* Wisconsin (11.0%)
* Nevada (10.9%)
* Alaska (10.8%)
* Arkansas
Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...
(10.7%)
* Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...
(10.6%)
* South Dakota (10.4%)
* Florida (10.3%)
* Arizona (10.2%)
* Idaho (10.0%)
* Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are ...
(9.8%)
* South Carolina (8.8%)
* Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia (7.9%)
* Alabama (7.8%)
* California (7.7%)
* North Dakota (7.7%)
* North Carolina (7.5%)
* Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
(7.2%)
* Louisiana (7.0%)
* Mississippi (6.9%)
* Utah (5.9%)
* District of Columbia (5.5%)
2020 population of Irish ancestry by state
As of 2020, the distribution of Irish Americans across the 50 states and DC is as presented in the following table:
Irish-American communities
According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city of Butte, Montana has the highest percentage of Irish Americans per capita of any city in the United States, with around one-quarter of the population reporting Irish ancestry. Butte's Irish Catholic population originated with the waves of Irish immigrants who arrived in the city in the late-nineteenth century to work in the industrial mining, mines. By population List of U.S. cities with large Irish-American populations, Boston and Philadelphia have the two largest Irish American populations in the country.
There are Irish neighborhoods scattered all throughout Boston, most notably South Boston. Many of Philadelphia's Irish neighborhoods are located in the Northeast Philadelphia section of the city, particularly in the Fishtown, Philadelphia, Fishtown, Mayfair, Philadelphia, Mayfair, and Kensington, Philadelphia, Kensington neighborhoods, as well as the South Philadelphia section, most notably the Pennsport, Philadelphia, Pennsport ("Two Street" to the locals) neighborhood. There are large Irish populations in the Greater Boston, Boston and Delaware Valley, Philadelphia metropolitan areas as well. The South Side, Chicago, South Side of Chicago, Illinois also has a large Irish community, who refer to themselves as the South Side Irish.
People
In politics and government
The United States Declaration of Independence contained 56 delegate signatures. Of the signers, eight were of Irish descent. Three signers, Matthew Thornton, George Taylor (Pennsylvania politician), George Taylor and James Smith (Pennsylvania politician), James Smith, were born in Ireland; the remaining five Irish Americans, George Read (American politician, born 1733), George Read, Thomas McKean, Thomas Lynch Jr., Edward Rutledge, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Charles Carroll, were the sons or grandsons of Irish immigrants. Though not a delegate but the secretary at the Congress, Charles Thomson, also Irish American, signed as well. The United States Constitution was created by Constitutional Convention (United States), a convention of 36 delegates. Of these, at least six were of Irish ancestry. George Read and Thomas McKean had already worked on the Declaration, and were joined by John Rutledge, William Paterson (judge), William Paterson, Pierce Butler (American politician), Pierce Butler, Daniel Carroll, and Thomas Fitzsimons. The Carrolls and Fitzsimons were Irish Catholic
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, while Thomas Lynch Jr, James Smith (Pennsylvania politician), James Smith, Pierce Butler (American politician), Pierce Butler and George Read were Irish Protestants they were descended from Normans in Ireland, Irish Normans Anglo-Irish and Gaelic Ireland, native Irish who had intermarried for several centuries not ulster-Scots. The remainder were Ulster Scots people, Scotch-Irish.
By the 1850s, the Irish were already a major presence in the police departments of large cities. In New York City in 1855, of the city's 1,149 policemen, 305 were natives of Ireland. Within 30 years, Irish Americans in the NYPD were almost twice their proportion of the city's population. Both Boston's police and fire departments provided many Irish immigrants with their first jobs. The creation of a unified police force in Philadelphia opened the door to the Irish in that city. By 1860 in Chicago, 49 of the 107 on the police force were Irish. Chief O'Leary headed the police force in New Orleans, and Malachi Fallon was chief of police of San Francisco.[Potter (1960), p. 530]
The Irish Catholic diaspora are very well-organized and since 1850 have produced a majority of the leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church, labor unions, the Democratic Party in larger cities, and Catholic high schools, colleges and universities.
The cities of Milwaukee
Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee i ...
and Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...
currently () have Irish American mayors. Pittsburgh mayor Bob O'Connor (mayor), Bob O'Connor died in office in 2006. New York City has had at least three Irish-born mayors and over eight Irish American mayors. The most recent one was County Mayo native William O'Dwyer, first elected in 1945. Beginning in the 1909 mayoral election, every Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City was a man of Irish descent until New York City mayoral elections#1950, 1950, when a special election saw three Italian Americans as the top vote getters.
The Irish Protestant vote has not been studied nearly as much. Historian Timothy J. Meagher argues that by the late 19th century, most of the Protestant Irish "turned their backs on all associations with Ireland and melted into the American Protestant mainstream." A minority insisted on a "Scots-Irish" identity.
In Canada, by contrast, Irish Protestants remained a political force, with many belonging to the Orange Order. It was an anti-Catholic social organization with chapters across Canada. It was most powerful during the late 19th century.
Political leanings
Al Smith and later John F. Kennedy were political heroes for American Catholics. Al Smith, who had an Irish mother and an Italian-German father, in 1928 became the first Catholic to run for president. From the 1830s to the 1960s, Irish Catholics voted heavily History of the United States Democratic Party, Democratic, with occasional exceptions like the 1920 United States presidential election. Their precincts showed average support levels of 80%. As historian Lawrence McCaffrey notes, "until recently they have been so closely associated with the Democratic party that Irish, Catholic, and Democrat composed a trinity of associations, serving mutual interests and needs. "
The great majority of Irish Catholic politicians were Democrats, with a few exceptions before 1970 such as Connecticut Senator John A. Danaher and Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. Today, Irish politicians are associated with both parties. Ronald Reagan boasted of his Irishness. Historically, Irish Catholics controlled prominent Democratic city organizations. Among the most prominent were New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Jersey City, and Albany. Many served as chairmen of the Democratic National Committee, including County Monaghan native Thomas Taggart, Vance McCormick, James Farley, Edward J. Flynn, Robert E. Hannegan, J. Howard McGrath, William H. Boyle, Jr., John Moran Bailey, Larry O'Brien, Christopher J. Dodd, Terry McAuliffe and Tim Kaine. In Congress, the Irish are represented in both parties; currently, Susan Collins of Maine, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, Jr. of Pennsylvania, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Dan Sullivan (U.S. senator), Dan Sullivan of Alaska, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and Maria Cantwell of Washington are Irish Americans serving in the United States Senate. Former Speaker of the House of Representatives and Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan is another prominent Irish-American Republican. Exit polls show that in recent presidential elections Irish Catholics have split about 50–50 for Democratic and Republican candidates.[Marlin (2004), pp. 296–345] The pro-life faction in the Democratic party includes many Irish Catholic politicians, such as the former Boston mayor and ambassador to the Vatican Ray Flynn and senator Bob Casey, Jr., who defeated Senator Rick Santorum in a high visibility race in Pennsylvania in 2006.[Prendergast (1999), p. 1.]
In New York State where fusion voting is practiced, Irish Americans were instrumental in the founding of the Conservative Party of New York State, Conservative party in opposition to Nelson Rockefeller and other liberal Republicans who dominated the state GOP during the 1960s and 70s. The party, founded by Irish American lawyers J. Daniel Mahoney and Kieran O'Doherty would serve as a vehicle for William F. Buckley when he ran for mayor of New York in 1965 New York City mayoral election, 1965 against liberal White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, WASP Republican John V. Lindsay and establishment Democrat Abe Beame. Elsewhere, significant majorities of the local Irish stayed with the Democratic party, such as in Massachusetts and in other parts of Southern New England.
In some heavily Irish small towns in northern New England and central New Jersey the Irish vote is quite Republican, but other places like Gloucester, New Jersey and Butte, Montana retain strongly liberal and Democratic-leaning Irish populations. In the 1984 United States Presidential Election Irish Catholics in Massachusetts voted 56% to 43% for Walter Mondale while their cousins in New York State voted 68% to 32% for Ronald Reagan.
The voting intentions of Irish Americans and other white ethnic groups attracted attention in the 2016 US election. In the Democratic primaries, Boston's Irish were said to break strongly for Hillary Clinton, whose victories in Irish-heavy Boston suburbs may have helped her narrowly carry the state over Bernie Sanders. A 2016 March survey by Irish Central showed that 45% of Irish Americans nationwide supported Donald Trump, although the majority of those in Massachusetts supported Hillary Clinton. An October poll by Buzzfeed showed that Irish respondents nationwide split nearly evenly between Trump (40%) and Clinton (39%), with large numbers either undecided or supporting other candidates (21%), and that the Irish were more supportive of Clinton than all the other West European-descended Americans including fellow Catholic Italian Americans.
In early November 2016, six days before the election, another poll by IrishCentral showed Clinton ahead at 52% among Irish Americans, while Trump was at 40% and the third-party candidates together had 8%; Irish respondents in Massachusetts similarly favored Clinton by majority. In 2017, a survey with 3,181 Irish American respondents (slightly over half being beyond third generation) by ''Irish Times'' found that 41% identified as Democrats while 23% identified as Republicans; moreover, 45% used NBC (typically considered left-leaning) for their news while 36% used Fox News (considered right-leaning).
The presence of supporters of Trump among Irish and other white ethnic communities which had once themselves been marginalized immigrants generated controversy, with Progressivism in the United States, progressive Irish American media figures admonishing their co-ethnics against "myopia" and "amnesia". However, such criticisms by left leaning pundits were frequently leveled against Irish-American conservatives prior to Trump's presidential run, with one columnist from the Liberalism in the United States, liberal online magazine ''Salon (website), Salon'' calling Irish-American Conservatism in the United States, conservatives "disgusting". In New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
, ongoing trends of suburbanization, gentrification, and the increased tendency of Irish-Americans to vote Republican, as well as the increasingly American Left, left wing politics of the Democrat Party, led to the collapse of Irish political power in the city during the 2010s. This trend was exemplified by the defeat of Queens Representative and former Democratic Caucus Chairman of the United States House of Representatives, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Joe Crowley by Democratic Socialists of America, democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the 2018 Democratic primary.
American presidents with Irish ancestry
A large number of the presidents of the United States have Irish origins. The extent of Irish heritage varies. For example, Chester Arthur's father and both of Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was an American lawyer, planter, general, and statesman who served as the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before being elected to the presidency, he gained fame as ...
's parents were Irish-born of British ancestry, while George W. Bush has distant Irish ancestry. Ronald Reagan's father was of Irish ancestry, while his mother also had some Irish ancestors. John F. Kennedy and Joe Biden had Irish lineage on both sides and both are the only practicing Roman Catholics. Barack Obama's Irish heritage originates from his Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham, whose ancestry is Irish and English.
;Andrew Johnson
17th president, 1865–69: Although he was Protestant, he had native Irish ancestry on his mother's side. His Mother was Mary "Polly" McDonough of Irish ancestry 1782
;William Howard Taft
27th president 1909–13: His great-great-great-grandfather, Robert Taft was born in 1640 in Ireland and immigrated to America, during the mid 17th century. Robert Taft was from County Louth in the republic of Ireland, his ancestry was both native Irish and Anglo-Irish
;Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
28th president 1913-1921: His paternal grandfather, an Ulster Protestant, immigrated from Strabane, County Tyrone, in 1807.
;Grover Cleveland
22nd and 24th president, 1885–89 and 1893–97: although personally Protestant, Cleveland had native Ulster Irish ancestry. He was the maternal grandson of merchant Abner O'Neal, who emigrated from County Antrim in the 1790s
;Ulysses S. Grant
18th president, 1869–77: His grandmother was Rachel Kelley, the daughter of an Irish pioneer Surname Kelly (surname), Kelly within Ulster is almost entirely of Irish origin
;John F. Kennedy
:35th president, 1961–1963 (Limerick and County Wexford) First Irish Catholic president.
;Richard M. Nixon
:37th president, 1969-1974 (County Kildare) Richard Milhouse Nixon was descended from a Quaker family who had emigrated to the United States from Timahoe, County Kildare in 1729. Nixon visited his ancestral home in 1972.
;Ronald Reagan
:40th president, 1981–1989: He was the great-grandson, on his father's side, of Irish migrants from Ballyporeen, County Tipperary who came to America via Canada and England in the 1840s. His mother was of Scottish and English ancestry.
;George H. W. Bush
:41st president, 1989–1993 (County Wexford): historians have found that his now apparent ancestor, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, shunned by Henry II of England, Henry II, offered his services as a mercenary in the 12th-century Norman invasion of Wexford in exchange for power and land. Strongbow married Aoife MacMurrough, Aoife, daughter of Dermot MacMurrough, the Gaelic king of Leinster.
;George W. Bush
:43rd president, 2001–2009: One of his five times great-grandfathers, William Holliday (a British merchant living in Ireland), was born in Rathfriland, County Down, about 1755 and died in Kentucky
Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...
about 1811–12. One of the President's seven times great-grandfathers, William Shannon, was born somewhere in County Cork about 1730, and died in Pennsylvania in 1784.
;Barack Obama
:44th president, 2009–2017: Some of his maternal ancestors came to America from a small village called Moneygall, in County Offaly. His ancestors lived in New England and the South and, by the 1800s, most were in the Midwest.
;Joe Biden
:46th and current president, 2021–present. Biden is of Family of Joe Biden, Irish ancestry; of his 16 great-great-grandparents, 10 were born in Ireland. He is descended from the Blewitts of County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth.[Matt Viser]
Irish humor, Irish temper: How Biden's identity shapes his political image
''Washington Post'' (March 17, 2021).
=Vice presidents of Irish descent
=
;Mike Pence
:48th vice president 2017–2021
Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Speakers of the U.S. House of Representatives
*Joseph W. Martin Jr. (44th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1947–1949 & 1953–1955; House Republican Conference Leader, 1939–1959; Party leaders of the United States House of Representatives, House Minority Leader, 1939–1947, 1949–1953 & 1955–1959; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 15th congressional district, 1925–1933; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 14th congressional district, 1933–1963; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 10th congressional district, 1963–1967; Republican National Committee Chair, 1940–1942)
*John W. McCormack (45th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1962–1971; House Democratic Caucus Leader, 1962–1971; House Majority Leader, 1940–1947, 1949–1953 & 1955–1962; House Minority Whip, 1947–1949 & 1953–1955; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 12th congressional district, 1928–1963; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, 1963–1971; Massachusetts Senate, Massachusetts State Senator, 1923–1928)
*Tip O'Neill (47th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1977–1987; House Democratic Caucus Leader, 1977–1987; House Majority Leader, 1973–1977; House Minority Whip, 1971–1973; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 11th congressional district, 1953–1963; U.S. Representative from Massachusetts's 8th congressional district, 1963–1987; List of Speakers of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1949–1953; Minority Leader of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1947–1949)
*Jim Wright (48th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1987–1989; House Democratic Caucus Leader, 1987–1989; House Majority Leader, 1977–1987; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Texas's 12th congressional district, 1955–1989; United States Army Air Forces, U.S. Army Air Force Second lieutenant#United States, 2nd Lieutenant, 1942–1946)
*Tom Foley (49th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1989–1995; House Democratic Caucus Leader, 1989–1995; House Majority Leader, 1987–1989; House Majority Whip, 1981–1987; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Washington's 5th congressional district, 1965–1995; United States House Committee on Agriculture, House Agriculture Committee Chair, 1975–1981; President's Intelligence Advisory Board Chair, 1996–1997; List of ambassadors of the United States to Japan, 25th U.S. Ambassador to Japan, 1997–2001)
*John Boehner (53rd Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2011–2015; House Republican Conference Leader, 2007–2015; House Majority Leader, 2006–2007; United States House Committee on Education and Labor, House Education Committee Chair, 2001–2006; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Ohio's 8th congressional district, 1991–2015; Ohio House of Representatives, Ohio State Representative, 1985–1991)
*Paul Ryan (54th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, 2015–2019; House Republican Conference Leader, 2015–2019; United States House Committee on Ways and Means, House Ways and Means Committee Chair, 2015; United States House Committee on the Budget, House Budget Committee Chair, 2011–2015; United States House of Representatives, U.S. Representative from Wisconsin's 1st congressional district, 1999–2019)
Irish-American justices of the Supreme Court
:* Joseph McKenna
:* Edward Douglass White, Jr., Edward D. White
:* Pierce Butler (justice), Pierce Butler
:* Frank Murphy
:* James Francis Byrnes
:* William J. Brennan
:* Anthony Kennedy
:* Neil Gorsuch Partial maternal Irish ancestry
:* Brett Kavanaugh
:* Amy Coney Barrett
See also
* 69th Infantry Regiment (New York)
* Ethnocultural politics in the United States
* Irish American Athletic Club
* Irish American Cultural Institute
* Irish-American Heritage Month
* Irish Brigade (U.S.)
* Irish Mob, criminals in large cities
* Irish Race Conventions, 19th-century international conventions
* Irish Whales, athletes
* List of Americans of Irish descent, notable individuals
* List of Irish-American Medal of Honor recipients
* Saint Patrick's Battalion
The Saint Patrick's Battalion ( es, Batallón de San Patricio, later reorganized as the Foreign Legion of Patricios) was a unit of 175 to several hundred (accounts vary) immigrants and expatriates of European descent who fought as part of the ...
, Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the ...
Notes
References
Other sources
*Corrigan, Michael, ''Confessions of a Shanty Irishman'', 2014, Virtual Bookworm, eBook and audio book.
Further reading
*
* Byrne, James Patrick, Philip Coleman, and Jason Francis King, eds. ''Ireland and the Americas: culture, politics, and history: a multidisciplinary encyclopedia'' (3 vol. ABC-CLIO, 2008)
* Glazier, Michael, ed. (1999). ''The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America''. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
* Rapple, Brendan A., and Jane Stewart Cook. "Irish Americans." in ''Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America'', edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 2, Gale, 2014), pp. 459–475
Online free
General surveys
* Anbinder, Tyler, Cormac Ó Gráda, Simone A. Wegge, "doi:10.1093/ahr/rhz1023, Networks and Opportunities: A Digital History of Ireland's Great Famine Refugees in New York," ''The American Historical Review'', Volume 124, Issue 5, December 2019, Pages 1591–1629
*Burchell, Robert A. "The historiography of the American Irish." ''Immigrants & Minorities'' 1.3 (1982): 281–305. doi:10.1080/02619288.1982.9974529, The historiography of the American Irish
* Fanning, Charles (1990/2000). ''The Irish Voice in America: 250 Years of Irish-American Fiction''. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press.
* Glynn, Irial
Emigration Across the Atlantic: Irish, Italians and Swedes compared, 1800–1950
European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2011, retrieved: June 16, 2011.
* Jenkins, William (2013). ''Between Raid and Rebellion: The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto, 1867–1916.'' Montreal: McGill-Queen's University.
* Kenny, Kevin (2000). ''The American Irish: A History''. New York: Longman, 2000.
* McGee, Thomas D'Arcy (1852)
''A History of the Irish Settlers in North America from the Earliest Period to the Census of 1850''
* Meagher, Timothy J. (2005). ''The Columbia Guide to Irish American History''. New York: Columbia University Press.
* Merryweather (née Green), Kath (2009). ''The Irish Rossiter: Ancestors and Their World Wide Descendents and Connections''. Bristol, UK: Irishancestors4u.
* Miller, Kerby M. (1985). ''Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America''. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Negra, Diane (ed.) (2006). ''The Irish in Us''. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
* Quinlan, Kieran (2005). ''Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South''. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
* Quinlin, Michael P. (2004). ''Irish Boston: A Lively Look at Boston's Colorful Irish Past''. Gilford: Globe Pequot Press.
*
* Whelan, Bernadette. "Women on the Move: a review of the historiography of Irish emigration to the USA, 1750–1900." ''Women's History Review'' 24.6 (2015): 900–916.
Catholic Irish
* Anbinder, Tyler (2002). ''Five Points: The Nineteenth-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections and Became the World's Most Notorious Slum''. New York: Plume
* Anbinder, Tyler, "Moving beyond 'Rags to Riches': New York's Irish Famine Immigrants and Their Surprising Savings Accounts," ''Journal of American History'' 99 (December 2012), 741–70.
* Appel, John J. "From shanties to lace curtains: the Irish image in Puck, 1876–1910." ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 13.4 (1971): 365-375
online
* Bayor, Ronald; Meagher, Timothy (eds.) (1997) ''The New York Irish''. Baltimore: University of Johns Hopkins Press.
* Blessing, Patrick J. (1992). ''The Irish in America: A Guide to the Literature and the Manuscript Editions''. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
* Clark, Dennis (1982). ''The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience'' (2nd Ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
* Curley, Thomas F. "Catholic Novels and American Culture." ''Commentary'' 36.1 (1963): 34
excerpt
* Ebest, Ron. "The Irish Catholic Schooling of James T. Farrell, 1914–23." ''Éire-Ireland'' 30.4 (1995): 18-3
excerpt
* English, T. J. (2005). ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: ReganBooks.
* Erie, Steven P. (1988). ''Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840—1985''. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
* Fanning, Charles, and Ellen Skerrett. "James T. Farrell and Washington Park: The Novel as Social History." ''Chicago History'' 8 (1979): 80–91.
* French, John. "Irish-American Identity, Memory, and Americanism During the Eras of the Civil War and First World War." (PhD Dissertation, Marquette University, 2012)
Online
* Gleeson. David T. ''The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America'' (U of North Carolina Press, 2013)
online review
* Ignatiev, Noel (1996). ''How the Irish Became White''. New York: Routledge.
* Jensen, Richard. (2002) "'No Irish Need Apply': A Myth of Victimization". ''Journal of Social History'' 36.2 pp. 405–42
* Kenny, Kevin. "Abraham Lincoln and the American Irish." ''American Journal of Irish Studies'' (2013): 39–64.
* Kenny, Kevin (2000). ''The American Irish: A History''. New York: Longman, 2000.
* Knobel, Dale T. " 'Celtic Exodus': The Famine Irish, Ethnic Stereotypes, and the Cultivation of American Racial Nationalism." ''Radharc'' 2 (2001): 3-25
online
* McCaffrey, Lawrence J. (1976). ''The Irish Diaspora in America''. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America
* McKelvey, Blake. "The Irish in Rochester An Historical Retrospect." ''Rochester History'' 19: 1–16
online
on Rochester New York
* Meagher, Timothy J. (2000). ''Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880–1928''. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
* Mitchell, Brian C. (2006). ''The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821–61''. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
* Mooney, Jennifer. ''Irish Stereotypes in Vaudeville, 1865-1905'' (Springer, 2015).
* Mulrooney, Margaret M. (ed.) (2003). ''Fleeing the Famine: North America and Irish Refugees, 1845–1851''. New York: Praeger Publishers.
* Noble, Dale T. (1986). ''Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America''. Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press.
* O'Connor, Thomas H. (1995). ''The Boston Irish: A Political History''. Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky.
* O'Donnell, L. A. (1997). ''Irish Voice and Organized Labor in America: A Biographical Study''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
* O'Neill, Peter D. (2019). "Famine Irish and the American Racial State." New York: Routledge. (ISBN 978-0-367-34444-3)
* Potter, George. ''To the Golden Door: The Story of the Irish in Ireland and America'' (Little, Brown, 1960.
* Rogers, James Silas and Matthew J O'Brien, eds. ''After the Flood: Irish America, 1945–1960'' (2009), Specialized essays by scholars.
* Shaughnessy, Edward L. "O’Neill’s African and Irish-Americans: stereotypes or ‘faithful realism’?" in ''Cambridge Companion to Eugene O'Neill'' (1998): 148-63
online
* Sim, David. (2013) ''A Union Forever: The Irish Question and US Foreign Relations in the Victorian Age'' (Cornell University Press, 2013)
* Williams, William H.A. '' 'Twas only an Irishman's dream: the image of Ireland and the Irish in American popular song lyrics, 1800-1920'' (University of Illinois Press, 1996
online
Protestant Irish
* Blaustein, Richard. '' The Thistle and the Brier: Historical Links and Cultural Parallels Between Scotland and Appalachia'' (2003).
* Blethen, Tyler; Wood, Curtis W. Jr.; Blethen, H. Tyler (Eds.) (1997). ''Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish''. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press.
* Cunningham, Roger (1991). ''Apples on the Flood: Minority Discourse and Appalachia''. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee Press.
* Esbenshade, Richard. "Scotch-Irish Americans." in ''Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America'', edited by Thomas Riggs, (3rd ed., vol. 4, Gale, 2014), pp. 87–100
Online free
* David Hackett Fischer, Fischer, David Hackett (1991). ''Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America''. New York: Oxford University Press USA.
* Ford, Henry Jones (1915). ''The Scotch-Irish in America''
Full text online
* Griffin, Patrick (2001). ''The People with No Name: Ireland's Ulster Scots, America's Scots Irish, and the Creation of a British Atlantic World, 1689–1764''. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
* Kenny, Kevin (2000). ''The American Irish: A History''. New York: Longman, 2000.
* Leyburn, James G. (1989). ''The Scotch-Irish: A Social History''. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
* Lorle, Porter (1999). ''A People Set Apart: The Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio''. Zanesville, Ohio: Equine Graphics Publishing.
* McWhiney, Grady (1988). '' Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South''. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
* Ray, Celeste. ''Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South'' (2001).
* Webb, James H. (2004). ''Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America''. New York: Broadway. .
External links
''Irish America'' magazine
''Irish Voice''
newspaper for Irish Americans
Irish Diaspora Center
(formerly the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia)
Ancient Order of Hibernians
The Ireland Funds
The Eire Society of Boston
Boston Irish Reporter
{{Irish diaspora
American people of Irish descent,
Irish American, *
Irish-American history,