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. 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, Protestants account for 73% of those claiming Irish origins, while Catholics account for 19%. In the
Northern United States, 45% of those claiming Irish origin are Catholic, while 39% are Protestant. who were described simply as "Irish". The religious distinction became important after 1820, when large numbers of Irish Roman Catholics began to emigrate to the United States. Some of the descendants of the colonial Irish Protestant settlers from
Ulster began thereafter to redefine themselves as "Scotch Irish", to stress their historic origins, and distanced themselves from Irish Roman Catholics; others continued to call themselves Irish, especially in areas of the South which saw little Irish Roman Catholic immigration. By 1830, Irish diaspora demographics had changed rapidly, with over 60% of all Irish immigrant settlers in the U.S. being Roman Catholics from rural areas of Ireland. Some Protestant Irish immigrants became active in explicitly anti-Catholic organizations such as the
Orange Institution 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 spirit of the new United States attracted exiled
United Irishmen such as
Theobald Wolf Tone and others, with the presidency of
Andrew Jackson 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 and the Canadian
Maritime provinces, where Orange lodges were able to flourish under the British flag. 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 in New York City in 1824, 1870, and 1871. ''. The view is at
25th Street in
Manhattan looking south down
Eighth Avenue. The first "Orange riot" on record was in 1824, in
Abingdon Square, 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." The later
Orange Riots 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 orders. After 1871, there were no more riots between Irish Roman 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,
Franciscans,
Augustinians and
Capuchins) 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. in Philadelphia in 1844.
Saint Patrick's Battalion (
San Patricios) was a group of several hundred immigrant soldiers, the majority Irish, who deserted the U.S. Army during the
Mexican–American War because of ill treatment or sympathetic leanings to fellow Mexican Catholics. They joined the Mexican army. In
Boston 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. In New York, Archbishop
John Hughes (1797–1864), an Irish immigrant himself, was deeply involved in "the Irish question"—Irish independence from
British rule. Hughes supported
Daniel O'Connell's
Catholic emancipation movement in Ireland, but rejected such radical and violent societies as the
Young Irelanders 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 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. Hughes made speeches denouncing the Public School Society of New York, which mandated that all educational institutions use the
King James Bible, an unacceptable proposition to Catholics. The dispute between Catholics and Protestants over the funding of schools led the
New York Legislature to pass the Maclay Act 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 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. Many
Irish Catholics that had made the passage across the
Atlantic, especially after the rapid increase in Irish Catholic emigration after the
Great Famine in 1845, had formed their own communities inside urban cities. The Irish Roman Catholic community did not share the same patterns of life, coming from a peasant society, as
Protestant Americans the same way that the
Ulster Protestants did before them and therefore couldn't integrate as easily into American society. They quickly found themselves on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder due to their lack of skills from
agricultural serfdom and lack of funds which resulted in many Catholics moving into
Irish ghettos. In 1870, 72% of Irish Americans were concentrated in the urban industrial estates of
Massachusetts,
Connecticut,
New York,
New Jersey,
Pennsylvania,
Ohio, and
Illinois. Catholics found that urban living suited their lifestyle as a gregarious, community-minded population. Urban areas offered close proximity to other ethnic Irish peoples in their community that rural America couldn't offer. 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. Boston College, by contrast, was established over twenty years later in 1863 to appeal to urban Irish Roman 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 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 Roman 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
Presbyterians. 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 and
Methodists 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. They were avid participants in the revivals taking place during the
Great Awakening 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.
Francis Makemie, an
Irish Presbyterian immigrant later established churches in Maryland and Virginia. Makemie was born and raised near
Ramelton,
County Donegal, to
Ulster Scots parents. He was educated in the
University of Glasgow and set out to organize and initiate the construction of several Presbyterian Churches throughout Maryland and Virginia. He founded the first Presbyterian congregation in
Snow Hill, Maryland in 1683. By 1706, Makemie and his followers constructed a Presbyterian Church in
Rehobeth, Maryland. 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, 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, but deep Presbyterian influence at the college continued through the 1910s, as typified by university president
Woodrow Wilson. Out on the frontier, the Scots-Irish Presbyterians of the
Muskingum Valley in
Ohio established
Muskingum College at
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.
Irish Jews While most Irish Americans are from Christian religious backgrounds, some are
Irish Jews. A 1927 news article published by
The American Hebrew reported that New York City was home to 1,000 Irish American Jews and that several thousand more lived elsewhere in the United States. In the same year, an organization formed in Brooklyn called "The Irish Jews of America" and planned to establish an Irish-American synagogue. In 1969, an organization of Irish American Jews in New York City called the "Loyal Yiddish Sons of Erin" celebrated when
Purim and
St. Patrick's Day fell on the same date. Members of the group also celebrated Erev St. Patrick's Day Banquet each year, serving corned beef, green bagels, and green matzo balls.
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. The African American Irish Diaspora Network is an organization founded in 2020 that is dedicated to Black Irish Americans and their history and culture. Black Irish American activists and scholars have pushed to increase awareness of Black Irish history and advocate for greater inclusion of Black people within the Irish-American community. In 2021,
New York University marked the beginning of Black History Month Ireland by publishing a report on Black and Brown Irish Americans. The report was created to bring visibility to Irish Americans of color and increase awareness of the racial diversity within the Irish-American community.
Language Down to the end of the 19th century a large number of Irish immigrants arrived speaking
Irish 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, where it proved a useful recruiting tool for Loyalists during the
American Revolution. 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 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,
Philadelphia,
Boston,
Chicago and
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. In
Upstate New York, the
Great Lakes area, the
Midwest and the
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 and
New England. 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,
Lowell,
Taunton,
Brockton,
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 towards African Americans, society similarly viewed Irish immigrants as inferior beings. , c. 1909 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.
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 railroads, 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
Board of Aldermen; of the NYPD's 1,149 men, Irish-born officers made up 304 of 431 foreign-born policemen. 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
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 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 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 Centuries. Rising
anti-Catholic and
Nativist sentiments among Protestant Americans led to increasing discrimination against Irish Americans in the 1850s. Prejudice against Irish Catholics in the U.S. reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the founding of 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, an immigrant to America from County Tyrone, Ireland, campaigned for public funding of
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,
Catholic higher education expanded during this period with colleges and universities that evolved into such institutions as
Fordham University and
Boston College providing alternatives to Irish who were not otherwise permitted to apply to other colleges.
want ad 1854—the only New York Times'' ad with NINA for men. Many Irish work gangs were hired by contractors to build canals, railroads, city streets and sewers across the country. 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 of 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. The Irish had many humorists of their own, but were scathingly attacked in political cartoons, especially those in
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 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. This image as terrorists emerged due to the antics of the Fenian Brotherhood and its associated organizations. Expeditions across the border into Canada to battle British forces and the
dynamite campaign of the 1880s contributed to American fears of the radical and unstable nature of the Irish and beliefs of racial inferiority.
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 United States's oldest, dating back to 1737.
Savannah, Georgia, also holds one of the largest parades in the United States. 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,
Jackie Gleason, Luke Gordon, and
Ed Sullivan. The Irish American contribution to politics spans the entire ideological spectrum. Two prominent American socialists,
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 candidates such as
Ronald Reagan. Notorious Irish Americans include the legendary New Mexico outlaw
Billy the Kid. Many historians believe he was born in New York City to Famine-era immigrants from Ireland. Colorful Irish Americans also include
Margaret Tobin of
RMS Titanic fame, scandalous model
Evelyn Nesbit, dancer
Isadora Duncan,
San Francisco 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,
reggae, and
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 Loyalist gang of the same name. The song appears on their album
The Crane Wife.
Flogging Molly, led by Dublin-born
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. basketball team 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. started the tradition of wearing green uniforms on St. Patrick's day. 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,
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
spring training on St. Patrick's Day. The Phillies hold the distinction of being the first baseball team to wear green uniforms on St. Patrick's Day. The tradition was started by Phillies pitcher
Tug McGraw, who dyed his uniform green the night before March 17, 1981. licks John L. Sullivan in 1892
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
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 descends from paternal Irish ("
Cruise" and "O'Mara") lineage around
County Dublin. 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,
Louis C.K.,
Shane Gillis,
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
Billie Eilish,
Christina Aguilera,
Kelly Clarkson,
Kurt Cobain,
Bing Crosby,
Tori Kelly,
Tim McGraw,
Mandy Moore,
Hilary Duff,
Fergie,
Jerry Garcia,
Judy Garland,
Katy Perry,
Tom Petty,
Pink,
Michael McDonald,
Bruce Springsteen,
Gwen Stefani,
Lindsay Lohan,
Mariah Carey,
George M. Cohan,
Paris Hilton,
Alicia Keys and others.
Holidays Halloween is of Irish origin.
Sense of heritage mural in
South Boston, Massachusetts Many Americans of Irish descent still identify their ethnicity as Irish. , dyed green for the 2005
St. Patrick's Day celebration Movements like the
Fenian Brotherhood were early examples of a history of the Irish diaspora in America continuing to support Irish independence from the United Kingdom. The Fenian Brotherhood was a specific movement based in the United States that launched several unsuccessful attacks on British-controlled Canada known as the "
Fenian Raids" in the 1860s. The
Friends of Irish Freedom raised millions of dollars from its inception in 1916 until 1932. The Irish Republican organization
Clan na Gael also provided large amounts of money and support for
Irish republican movements in Ireland. The Irish American fund-raising organization
NORAID (founded by Irish immigrant and former
IRA veteran
Michael Flannery) received money from Irish American donators, officially stated to support the families of imprisoned or dead
Provisional Irish Republican Army members—in 1984, the
U.S. Department of Justice succeeded in forcing NORAID to acknowledge the Provisional IRA as its "foreign principal" under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act. Irish heritage organizations, such as the
Ancient Order of Hibernians, intend to foster and promote the preservation of Irish culture, including dance, language, music, and sports in the United States. Many Americans continue to celebrate
Saint Patrick’s Day. Traditionally, corned beef and boiled cabbage are served in Irish-American households. This dish is not of direct Irish origin. Instead, it originated in the
Northeastern United States. Corned beef’s popularity relative to
back bacon among the Irish immigrant population may have been due to corned beef being considered a luxury product in Ireland. In the United States, it was cheap and readily available. Some Americans, both of Irish descent and otherwise, have been occasionally criticized over misunderstandings of
Irish culture, or a disconnect from the cultural evolution and daily realities of modern Ireland, The term "
Plastic Paddy" originally was coined by the
British media in response to musician
Shane MacGowan after he released
Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six, and was thereafter frequently applied to the
working class British Irish who inhabited English cities such as
London and
Manchester, often by Irish university graduates from
South Dublin who emigrated to the
United Kingdom in the 1990s. With the rise of
globalization and the internet, this term against the
Irish Diaspora has been extended to refer to Americans of Irish ancestry as a whole in the 2000s and 2010s, whose ties to Ireland are dismissed by the newly
cosmopolitan Irish upper middle class as tenuous. Certain
American conservatives have also been criticized for making exaggerated claims about the treatment of the Irish within the United States in comparison to the treatment of other minority groups in the United States, particularly in the context of attempting to delegitimize inequalities certain groups may face by comparing the circumstances of the Irish to these groups. Such parties have faced criticisms for exaggerating the oppression of the Irish within the United States relative to the oppression that other
disenfranchised groups within the United States faced, not acknowledging the general assimilation of the Irish into the general concept of
Whiteness in America. ==Demographics==