Irish Catholics are an
ethnoreligious group
An ethnoreligious group (or an ethno-religious group) is a grouping of people who are unified by a common religious and ethnic background.
Furthermore, the term ethno-religious group, along with ethno-regional and ethno-linguistic groups, is a s ...
native to
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
whose members are both
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
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 ...
. They have
a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million
American citizens
Citizenship of the United States is a legal status that entails Americans with specific rights, duties, protections, and benefits in the United States. It serves as a foundation of fundamental rights derived from and protected by the Constituti ...
and over 14 million
British citizens
British nationality law prescribes the conditions under which a person is recognised as being a national of the United Kingdom. The six different classes of British nationality each have varying degrees of civil and political rights, due to the ...
(a quarter of the British population).
Overview and history
Divisions between Irish Roman Catholics and
Irish Protestants
Protestantism is a Christian minority on the island of Ireland. In the 2011 census of Northern Ireland, 48% (883,768) described themselves as Protestant, which was a decline of approximately 5% from the 2001 census. In the 2011 census of the ...
played a major role in the
history of Ireland
The first evidence of human presence in Ireland dates to around 33,000 years ago, with further findings dating the presence of homo sapiens to around 10,500 to 7,000 BC. The receding of the ice after the Younger Dryas cold phase of the Quaterna ...
from the 16th century to the 20th century, especially during the
Home Rule Crisis
The Home Rule Crisis was a political and military crisis in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that followed the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1912. Unionists in Ulster, d ...
and
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
. While religion broadly marks the delineation of these divisions, the contentions were primarily political and they were also related to access to power. For example, while the majority of Irish Catholics had an identity which was independent from Britain's identity and were excluded from power because they were Catholic, a number of the instigators of rebellions against British rule were actually
Protestant Irish nationalists
Protestant Irish Nationalists are adherents of Protestantism in Ireland who also support Irish nationalism. Protestants have played a large role in the development of Irish nationalism since the eighteenth century, despite most Irish nationa ...
, although most Irish Protestants opposed separatism. In the
Irish Rebellion of 1798
The Irish Rebellion of 1798 ( ga, Éirí Amach 1798; Ulster-Scots: ''The Hurries'') was a major uprising against British rule in Ireland. The main organising force was the Society of United Irishmen, a republican revolutionary group influence ...
, Catholics and
Presbyterians, who were not part of the
established Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the second ...
, found common cause.
Irish Catholics are found in many countries around the world, especially in the
Anglosphere
The Anglosphere is a group of English-speaking world, English-speaking nations that share historical and cultural ties with England, and which today maintain close political, diplomatic and military co-operation. While the nations included in d ...
. Emigration exponentially increased due to the
Great Famine which lasted from 1845 to 1852. In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
anti-Irish sentiment and
anti-Catholicism
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
was espoused by the
Know Nothing movement of the 1850s and other 19th-century
anti-Catholic
Anti-Catholicism is hostility towards Catholics or opposition to the Catholic Church, its clergy, and/or its adherents. At various points after the Reformation, some majority Protestant states, including England, Prussia, Scotland, and the Uni ...
and
anti-Irish
Anti-Irish sentiment includes oppression, persecution, discrimination, or hatred of Irish people as an ethnic group or a nation. It can be directed against the island of Ireland in general, or directed against Irish emigrants and their descen ...
organizations. By the 20th century, Irish Catholics were well established in the United States and today they are fully-integrated into mainstream American society.
See also
*
Catholic Church in Ireland
, native_name_lang = ga
, image = Armagh, St Patricks RC cathedral.jpg
, imagewidth = 200px
, alt =
, caption = St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh.
, abbreviation =
, type ...
*
Celtic Christianity
*
Cultural Christians
Cultural Christians are nonreligious persons who adhere to Christian values and appreciate Christian culture. As such, these individuals usually identify themselves as culturally Christians, and are often seen by practicing believers as nomin ...
*
Irish Americans
, image = Irish ancestry in the USA 2018; Where Irish eyes are Smiling.png
, image_caption = Irish Americans, % of population by state
, caption = Notable Irish Americans
, population =
36,115,472 (10.9%) alone ...
**
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 t ...
*
Irish migration to Britain
*
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 Newfoundlanders
In modern Newfoundland ( ga, Talamh an Éisc), many Newfoundlanders are of Irish descent. According to the Statistics Canada 2016 census, 20.7% of Newfoundlanders claim Irish ancestry (other major groups in the province include 37.5% English, 6.8 ...
**
Irish Quebecers
Irish Quebecers (french: Irlando-Québécois, ga, Éireannaigh as Québec) are residents of the Canadian province of Quebec who have Irish ancestry. In 2016, there were 446,215 Quebecers who identified themselves as having partial or exclusive ...
*
Irish-Scottish people
Irish-Scots are people in Scotland who have traceable Irish ancestry. Although there has been migration from Ireland (especially Ulster) to Britain for
millennia permanently changing the historic landscape of Scotland forever, Irish migrati ...
*
Irreligion in the Republic of Ireland
Ireland has been traditionally devoutly Catholic throughout most of its modern history.
Church attendance is declining in Ireland, and currently they rank in the Top 10 Atheist Populations in a survey which questioned 50,000 people from 57 count ...
*
Penal Laws
*
Religion in Northern Ireland
Christianity is the largest religion in Northern Ireland. At the 2021 census, the prevalence rates for the main religions were: Catholic (42 per cent); Presbyterian (16 per cent); Church of Ireland (11.5 per cent); Methodist (2.4 per cent ...
*
Religion in the Republic of Ireland
The predominant religion in the Republic of Ireland is Christianity, with the largest denomination being the Catholic Church. The Constitution of Ireland says that the state may not endorse any particular religion and guarantees freedom of relig ...
*
Saint Patrick's Day
Saint Patrick's Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick ( ga, Lá Fhéile Pádraig, lit=the Day of the Festival of Patrick), is a cultural and religious celebration held on 17 March, the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (), the foremost patr ...
*
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 Ulst ...
References
*
*
Further reading
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.
* Barr, Colin (2020). ''Ireland's Empire: The Roman Catholic Church in the English-Speaking World, 1829–1914''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* 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.
* English, T. J. (2005). ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: ReganBooks.
* Ebest, Ron. "The Irish Catholic Schooling of James T. Farrell, 1914–23." ''Éire-Ireland'' 30.4 (1995): 18-3
excerpt
* 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.
* 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
The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic project ...
.
* 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
Wesleyan University Press is a university press that is part of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. The press is currently directed by Suzanna Tamminen, a published poet and essayist.
History and overview
Founded (in its present for ...
.
* 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.
* Rogers, James Silas and Matthew J O'Brien, eds. ''After the Flood: Irish America, 1945–1960'' (2009), Specialized essays by scholars
* Sim, David. (2013) ''A Union Forever: The Irish Question and US Foreign Relations in the Victorian Age'' (
Cornell University Press
The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...
, 2013)
The Irish Cultural, Political, Social, and Religious HeritagesIreland: The Rise of Irish Nationalism, 1801–1850Emigrants and ImmigrantsCommunities in Conflict: American Nativists and Irish CatholicsIrish-American Politics Irish America and the Course of Irish NationalismFrom Ghetto to Suburbs: From Someplace to Noplace?Endnotes
External links
The Irish Catholic Diaspora in America describes the book
St. Colman Mac Duagh(Popular Irish Catholic site)
On Irish Catholics of Australia
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Anti-Catholicism in Ireland
Ethnoreligious groups in Ireland
History of Catholicism in Ireland
Irish diaspora
Religion in the British Empire
Catholic Church in Canada