Irish Americans

Irish American
Gael-Mheiriceánach

John F. Kennedy • Mother Jones • George M. Cohan James Braddock • Michael J. McGivney • James Michael Curley Victor Herbert • Eugene O'Neill • Ed Sullivan
Regions with significant populations
Throughout the entire Northeast, the West Coast, much of the South and Midwest, as well as the New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Boston municipal areas
Languages
American English, Irish language
Religion
Predominantly Roman Catholic Protestant
Related ethnic groups
Irish people, Scots-Irish Americans, Scottish Americans, Welsh Americans, English Americans

Irish Americans (Irish: Gael-Mheiriceánach) are citizens of the United States who can claim ancestry originating in the north west European island of Ireland. A total of 35,975,855 Americans (12% of total population) reported Irish ancestry in the 2006 American Community Survey. The only self-reported ancestral group larger than Irish Americans are German Americans. Note that this figure does not include those reporting Scots-Irish ancestry, who are counted separately, and account for approximately five million additional Americans.

Immigration to America

Catholics

Irish Catholics had been migrating to the United States in moderate numbers even before the American Revolution, some as ordinary domestic servants, some as indentured servants, or as a result of penal deportations; their numbers had increased immensely by the 1820s as migrants, mostly males, became involved in canal building, lumbering and civil construction works in the Northeast. The large Erie Canal project was one such example where Irishmen were the majority of the laborers used. Small but tight communities developed in growing cities such as Boston, New York City and Providence.

During and after the "Great Irish Famine" (or Great Hunger; Irish: An Gorta Mór) of 1845-1850, millions of Irish Catholics came to North America. Many lived in Canada and the United States. Many Irish who left Ireland for America during the famine and subsequent years did not make their destination. Due to poverty, ill health and poor conditions a significant number died en route. As a result the ships they travelled on became known as coffin ships.

Nearly a third of all Irish who left on ships during the famine period to North America emigrated from the United Kingdom to its dominion in Canada, having a large impact on a smaller population there as many arrived in a disease stricken state. Although the greater portion of these arrivals stayed on in Canada, particularly in Toronto and Ontario and remained as subjects of the British Empire, a significant number moved on to the United States to join quickly growing Irish American communities, some after staying in Canada for only a few years.

Gravestone in Boston Catholic cemetery erected in memory of County Roscommon native born shortly before The Great Hunger

Between 1820 and 1860, the Irish constituted over one third of all immigrants to the United States, and two-thirds of these Irish immigrants were Catholic. In the 1840s, as a result of the famine, nearly half of all immigrants to the United States originated from Ireland.

Many of these immigrants went to the largest cities, especially Boston and New York, as well as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, Missouri and San Francisco. Even today, many of these cities still retain a substantial Irish American community while New York City still has more people who claim Irish heritage than Dublin's whole population. These cities became the conduit through which Irish, both Protestant and Catholic entered American society. For example, recruiting drives to enlist recent Catholic Irish emigrants as field soldiers during the Mexican-American War and later the US Civil War proved troublesome for the U.S. Army, but without employment some Catholic Irish wound up enlisting anyway. Draft riots occurred, the most well known the New York Draft Riots resulting from conscription ordered by President Lincoln in 1863.

After 1860, Irish Catholic immigration continued, with family reunification mostly to the large cities where Irish American neighborhoods were previously established.

The majority of Irish immigrants probably spoke English; some were bilingual or native speakers of Irish. According to the latest 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, and Massachusetts the highest percentage, of the 50 states.

Scots-Irish and Irish Protestants

The term Scots-Irish (aka Ulster-Scots) is usually used to designate descendants of Scottish immigrants to Ireland, eventually immigrating to North America. Ulster is a region where much intermingling of Scots, English, and Irish people took place due to the Ulster Plantations. The number of this specific group is reported by the US Census of 2000 as being around 4.9 million.

The primary origin of this large population is centered around a quarter of a million Scots-Irish who fled the economic distress and social upheaval in the 18th century. They emigrated to America primarily before 1776 as subjects of the British Empire moving from one region to another. They settled especially in frontier areas of Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas, where land was free and collective action against Indian raids was needed. Given large tracts of free land, subsidized by British and colonial authorities, tens of thousands of these Protestant Scots-Irish became the force which conquered the American frontier. Many joined Presbyterian and Methodist churches.

The Chicago River, dyed green for the 2005 St. Patrick's Day celebration.

The term Anglo-Irish is sometimes used to designate Anglican (see Church of Ireland) and other Protestant Irish, many of whom were of English descent. They primarily originated from the areas of Dublin, Cork, Wexford, and the old Pale of Ireland, and moved following the upheavals of the Irish wars and the economic depression caused by the take-over of commercial regulation from the Kingdom of Ireland to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Much like the Scots-Irish, these colonists were also veterans of low-intensity warfare, were often former soldiers, and thus were encouraged to settle in frontier areas. Here they intermingled with the Scots-Irish to such an extent that the ability to distinguish between the two groups slowly became extinguished.

Some see a distinction between Catholic 'Irish Americans' and Protestant 'Scots-Irish' and 'Anglo-Irish' (though not all Scots-Irish migrants were specifically Protestant). Many people of both Anglo-Irish and Scots-Irish descent before 1849 described themselves as, simply, Irish. As Catholic Irish began to enter the U.S. in greater numbers the distinction Scots-Irish became popularized.

Two possible reasons have been suggested for the disparity of the figures of the census and the estimation. The first is that the English and Scots-Irish may quite often regard themselves as simply having either Irish ancestry (which 10.8% of Americans reported) or Scottish ancestry (reported by 4.9 million or 1.7% of the total population) or English ancestry. The other is that most of the descendants of this historical group have integrated themselves into American society because of the length of time they have been here, even reporting their ancestry as simply "American" (the most common ancestry in areas historically settled by the English and Scots-Irish, especially throughout much of the Southern United States).

Many of the 'English' and 'Scots-Irish' Protestants had assimilated into society by the time the large numbers of Catholic Irish immigrants arrived. When the numerous Scots-Irish first arrived, they were perceived as a distinctive group who settled mostly in the backcountry. Not only were the Irish Catholics a much larger group arriving in a later era of immigration, but they were at first separated from the main society by their Catholic religion and also by the long tradition of oppression by the English given their occupation of Ireland. In addition, they came from a mostly rural culture and entered cities in the United States which were rapidly industrializing. They had additional challenges than did the Scots-Irish who could become yeoman farmers in the early generations. These issues affected how Americans received Irish Catholics, as well as how they took to the United States.

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in the historical roots of Irish Protestants in North America. The Protestant Irish, particularly of the Scots-Irish background, usually retained a strong interest in farming, herding, and hunting. Additionally through the cousinage and clan ties, many of the Scots-Irish were rapidly encouraged to move onto the frontier where fellow Scots-Irish and American natives of Scots-Irish background awaited. Nonetheless, a significant number of the Scots-Irish who remained in the cities of the United States quickly took advantage of the new Republic's opportunities and assimilated into the artisan, craftsmen, and small business classes.

Occupations

Irish Catholic immigrants for the most part went directly to the cities, mill towns and railroad or canal construction sites in the east coast. Few became farmers. They were hired by Irish labor contractors to work in "labor gangs" as manual laborers on canals, railroads, streets, sewers and other construction projects, particularly in New York state and New England. Large numbers moved to New England mill towns, such as Lowell, Massachusetts, Fall River, Massachusetts and Milford, Massachusetts, where Protestant owners of textile mills welcomed the new low-wage workers. They took the jobs previously held by Yankee Protestant women known as Lowell girls. A large fraction of Irish Catholic women took jobs as maids in middle class households and hotels.

Large numbers of unemployed Irish Catholics lived in squalid conditions in the new city slums.

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. After 1945, the Catholic Irish consistently ranked toward the top of the social hierarchy, thanks especially to their high rate of college attendance.

The Irish quickly found employment in the police departments, fire departments and other public works of major cities, largely in the North East and around the Great Lakes. 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 century, five out of six NYPD officers were Irish born or of Irish descent. Irish Americans continue to have a disproportionate membership in the law enforcement community, especially in New England, where they continue to have a dominating role. When the Emerald Society of the Boston Police Department was formed in 1973, half of the city's police officers became members.

Discrimination and prejudice

New York Times want ad 1854--only newspaper ad with NINA for men.

It was common for Irishmen to be discriminated against in social situations. Intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants was uncommon (and strongly discouraged by both ministers and priests).

Public schools relied heavily on the King James verison of the Bible, with passages considered derogatory by Catholics; an important response was the creation of a Catholic parochial school system. These schools, and numerous Catholic colleges, allowed Irish youth to be educated without this discrimination in public school systems.

Johnathan Swift responded to bigotry by writing A Modest Proposal: For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from Being a Burden to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick. The satire sugggests that Irish children be sold as food for rich people. Prejudice against Irish Catholics in the US reached a peak in the mid-1850s with the Know Nothing Movement, which tried to oust Catholics from public office. Thomas Hardy and Thomas Nast published popular political cartoons of Irish drinking, fighting, ignoring their children, gambling, and crowding poorhouses.

After 1860 the Irish sang songs (see illustration) about signs reading "HELP WANTED - NO IRISH NEED APPLY", which were also referred to as "the NINA signs." The song had a deep impact on the Irish sense of discrimination.

Irish were credited with dominating the most difficult and dangerous jobs in the East building railroads needed for oil refining and for the trans-continental railroads, but were gradually replaced as the transcontinental railroad went West where Asian American labor was cheaper and less likely to demand union representation. Stephen Ambrose, Nothing Like it in the World: The Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000). According to Ambrose, approximately one-third of the workers died building the trenches for the tracks, often disappearing, never to be brought home. The emancipation of slaves was an issue the railroads lobbied for heavily, one that inspired them to turn to Abraham Lincoln. The industry planned for a huge influx of cheap labor to escalate the dangerous work of building railraods. The issue caused much concern for the Irish in the Northeast.

File:Nina3.jpg

1862 song that created the "No Irish Need Apply" slogan; it was copied from a similar London song.

Stereotypes and images

Irish Catholics were popular targets for stereotyping. 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 German American cartoons, especially those in Puck magazine from the 1870s to 1900. In addition, the cartoons of German American Thomas Nast were especially hostile; for example, he depicted the Irish-dominated Tammany Hall machine in New York City as a ferocious tiger.

Irish settlement in the South

While only 2% of Southerners were Irish Catholics, they concentrated in a few medium-size cities where they were highly visible, such as Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans. They became local leaders in the Democratic party, supported slavery, favored the Union in 1860, but became staunch Confederates in 1861. Starting as low skilled manual laborers, they achieved average or above average economic status by 1900. As one historian explains:

Native tolerance, however, was also a very important factor in Irish integration [into Southern society].... Upper-class southerners, therefore, did not object to the Irish, because Irish immigration never threatened to overwhelm their cities or states....The Irish were willing to take on potentially high-mortality occupations, thereby sparing valuable slave property. Some employers objected not only to the cost of Irish labor but also to the rowdiness of their foreign-born employees. Nevertheless, they recognized the importance of the Irish worker to the protection of slavery. The Irish endorsement of slavery and the efforts of the Irish to preserve the South as "a white man's country" after emancipation only endeared them further to southerners. The Catholicism practiced by Irish immigrants was of little concern to Southern natives.

The influence of the Presbyterian Irish Americans on the very foundation of the nation cannot be understated. The Declaration of Independence was drafted in handwriting by, and printed by, one such man — John Dunlap; the Great Seal of the US was designed by another — Charles Thomson. Much to the chagrin of Quakers, Irish-descended Protestants took a very active part in the political makeup of the country. More than one third of all US presidents have connections to Ulster, while thirteen of them are descended from Ulster Protestants. In Northern Ireland, the ancestral homes of presidents Arthur, Jackson, Wilson and Grant are tourist attractions.

Sense of heritage

Irish Republican mural in South Boston, Massachusetts.

People of Irish descent, particularly Roman Catholics, retain a sense of their Irish heritage. A sense of exile, diaspora, and (in the case of songs) even nostalgia is common in Irish America. It is unclear to what extent the sense of kinship with Ireland is embraced or resented by the actual Irish Citizens of Ireland, now that the country is strengthening its ties to Europe and becoming increasingly multi-racial. The term "Plastic Paddy", meaning someone who was not born in Ireland and who is separated from their closest Irish-born ancestor by (often) many generations, but who still likes to think of themselves as "Irish," is occasionally used in a derogatory fashion towards Irish Americans, but is more often used good-naturedly. The term is freely applied to relevant people of all nationalities, not solely Irish Americans.

Many Irish Americans were enthusiastic supporters of Irish independence; the Fenian Brotherhood movement was based in the United States and launched several attacks on British-controlled Canada known as the "Fenian Raids". The Provisional IRA received significant funding for its paramilitary activities from a group of Irish American supporters — in 1984, the US Department of Justice won a court case forcing the Irish American fundraising organization NORAID to acknowledge the Provisional IRA as its "foreign principal".

Irish Catholic Americans settled in large and small cities throughout the North--railroad centers and mill towns especially. They became perhaps the most urbanized group in America, as few became farmers. Strongholds include the metropolitan areas of Boston, Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco, 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 quarter of the population claiming Irish descent. The most Irish American town in the United States is Milton, MA, with 38% of its 26,000 or so residents being of Irish descent. Boston, New York, and Chicago have neighborhoods with higher percentages of Irish American residents. Regionally, the most Irish American part of the country remains central New England. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Delaware are the three states in which Irish heritage is the most dominant. Interestingly, in consequence of its unique history as a mining center, Butte, Montana is also one of the country's most thoroughly Irish American cities. Greeley, Nebraska (population 527) has the highest percentage of Irish American residents (43%) of any town or city with a population of over 500 in the United States. The town was part of the Irish Catholic Colonization effort of Bishop O'Connor of New York in the 1880s.

File:Irish Population 1872.jpg

Population density of people born in Ireland, 1870; these were mostly Catholics; the older Scots Irish immigration is not shown.

Irish in politics and government

The Catholic Irish moved rapidly into law enforcement, and (through the Catholic Church) built hundreds of schools, colleges, orphanages, hospitals, and asylums. Political opposition to the Catholic Irish climaxed in 1854 in the short-lived Know Nothing Party.

By the 1850s, the Irish Catholics were 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. 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.

The Irish had a reputation for being 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. John F. Kennedy was their greatest political hero. Al Smith, who lost to Herbert Hoover in the 1928 presidential election, was the first Irish Catholic to run for president. From the 1830s to the 1960s, Irish Catholics voted 80-95% Democratic, with occasional exceptions like the election of 1920.

Today, most Irish Catholic politicians are associated with the Democratic Party, although some became Republican leaders, such as former GOP national chairman Ed Gillespie, former House Homeland Security Chairman Peter T. King and the late Congressman Henry Hyde. Ronald Reagan boasted of his Irishness. (The son of an Irish Catholic father, he was raised as a Protestant.) Historically, Irish Catholics controlled many city machines and often 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, and Terry McAuliffe. The majority of Irish Catholics in Congress are Democrats; currently Susan Collins of Maine is the only Irish Catholic Republican senator. Exit polls show that in recent presidential elections Irish Catholics have split about 50-50 for Democratic and Republican candidates; large majorities voted for Ronald Reagan. The pro-life faction in the Democratic party includes many Irish Catholic politicians, such as senator Bob Casey, Jr., who defeated Senator Rick Santorum in a high visibility race in Pennsylvania in 2006.

Distribution of Irish Americans according to the 2000 Census

In some states such as Connecticut, the most heavily Irish communities now tend to be in the outer suburbs and generally support Republican candidates, such as New Fairfield.

Many major cities have elected Irish American Catholic mayors. Indeed, Boston, Cincinnati, Houston, Newark, New York City, Omaha, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Saint Paul, and San Francisco have all elected natives of Ireland as mayors. Chicago, Boston, and Jersey City have had more Irish American mayors than any other ethnic group. The cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Milwaukee, Oakland, Omaha, St. Paul, Jersey City, Rochester, Springfield, Rockford, San Francisco, Scranton, and Syracuse currently (as of 2006) have Irish American mayors. All of these mayors are Democrats. Pittsburgh 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, elected in 1949.

The Irish Protestant vote has not been studied nearly as much. Since the 1840s, it has been uncommon for a Protestant politician to be identified as Irish (though Ronald Reagan notably did and Bill Clinton claims to have Irish ancestry). In Canada, by contrast, Irish Protestants remained a cohesive political force well into the 20th century with many (but not all) belonging to the Orange Order. Throughout the 19th century, sectarian confrontation was commonplace between Protestant Irish and Catholic Irish in Canadian cities.

Presidents of Irish and Scots-Irish descent

At least twenty-three presidents of the United States have some Irish/Northern Irish (Scots-Irish American) ancestral origins, although the extent of this varies. For example, both of Andrew Jackson's parents were Irish born, while George W. Bush has a rather distant Irish ancestry. President Kennedy had far stronger Irish origins, which fell much closer in terms of date. Also, Ronald Reagan's father had some Irish Catholic ancestry, and his mother some Scots-Irish. James K. Polk also had Scots-Irish Ancestry. Only Kennedy was raised as a practicing Catholic.

United States President John F. Kennedy laying a wreath at Commodore John Barry Memorial in Wexford, Ireland in 1963.

United States President Ronald Reagan speaking to large crowd in his ancestral home in Ballyporeen, Ireland in 1984.

1. George Washington 1st President
2. Andrew Jackson, 7th President 1829-37
3. James Knox Polk, 11th President 1845-49
4. James Buchanan, 15th President 1857-61
5. Andrew Johnson, 17th president 1865-69
6. Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President 1869-77
7. Chester Alan Arthur, 21st President 1881-85
8. Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President 1885-89, 1893-97
9. Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President 1889-93
10. William McKinley, 25th President 1897-1901
11. Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president 1901-09
12. William Howard Taft, 27th President 1909-13
13. Woodrow Wilson, 28th President 1913-21
14. Warren G. Harding, 29th President 1921-23
15. Harry S. Truman, 33rd President 1945-53
16. John F. Kennedy, 35th President 1961-63
17. Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President 1963-69
18. Richard M. Nixon, 37th President 1969-74
19. Jimmy Carter, 39th President 1977-81
20. Ronald Reagan, 40th President 1981-89
21. George H. W. Bush, 41st President 1989-93
22. Bill Clinton, 42nd President 1993-2001 (his mother's maiden name was Cassidy)
23. George W. Bush, 43rd President 2001-present

Other Presidents of Irish descent

1. Jefferson Davis, first and only President of the Confederate States of America.
2. Sam Houston, President of Texas 1836-38 and 1841-44

Contributions to American culture

File:StPatrickCathedral small.jpg

St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York

The annual celebration of Saint Patrick's Day is the most widely recognized symbol of the Irish presence in America. In cities throughout the United States, this traditional Irish religious holiday becomes an opportunity to celebrate all things Irish, or faux Irish. 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 Savannah.

Since the arrival of tens of thousands of Irish immigrants in the 1840s, the urban Irish cop 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 populations in those cities of Irish extraction dwindled down to small minorities. Many police and fire departments maintain large and active "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, 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, and Ed Sullivan. Today, comedians such as Stephen Colbert, George Carlin, Jane Curtin, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Murray, and Conan O'Brien often reflect humorously on their Irish-American roots.

Since the early days of the film industry, celluloid representations of Irish-American 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, Gangs of New York, and The Departed. Irish-American characters have been featured in popular television series such as Ryan's Hope and Rescue Me.

Prominent Irish-American literary figures include Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winning playwright Eugene O'Neill, Jazz Age novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, social realist James T. Farrell, mystery writer Raymond Chandler, and Southern Gothic writer Flannery O'Connor. 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. Twentieth-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. While socially conservative Irish immigrants generally recoiled from radical politics, like Joseph McCarthy, two prominent American socialists, 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 thinker and political writer William F. Buckley emerged as a major intellectual force behind American conservative politics in the last half of the 20th century. Buckley's magazine, National Review, proved an effective advocate of successful Republican candidates such as Ronald Reagan.

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 the Dropkick Murphys, a Celtic punk band formed in Quincy, Massachusetts. The Decemberists, a band featuring Irish-American singer Colin Meloy, recently released "Shankill Butchers," a song that deals with the Ulster Loyalist group of the same name. The song appears on their album The Crane Wife.

The Irish brought their native games of hurling and Gaelic football to America. Along with handball and camogie, these sports are part of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The North American GAA organisation is still very strong.

Irish-American communities

Main article: List of Irish-American communities

See also

• 69th Infantry Regiment (United States)
• Hyphenated American
• Irish Brigade (U.S.)
• Irish Canadian
• It's A Great Day for the Irish
• Irish-American organized crime
• Irish Americans in New York City
• Immigration to the United States
• List of Ireland-related topics
• List of Irish-Americans
• Notre Dame
• Saint Patrick's Battalion
• South Side Irish

References

• Gleeson; David T. (2001). The Irish in the South, 1815-1877. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807826391
• Greeley, Andrew M. (1988). The Irish Americans: The Rise to Money and Power. New York: Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 0446385589
• Kenny, Kevin. (2000). The American Irish: A History. New York: Longman. ISBN 058227818X
• Marlin, George J. (2004). The American Catholic Voter: Two-Hundred Years of Public Impact. New York: St. Augustine's Press. ISBN 1587310236
• Potter, George W. (1960). To the Golden Door: The Story of the Irish in Ireland and America. New York: Greenwood Press.
• Prendergast, William B. (1999). The Catholic Voter in American Politics: The Passing of the Democratic Monolith. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. ISBN 0878407243
• Roberts, Gary Boyd; Otto, Julie Helen (1995). Ancestors of American Presidents: First Authoritative Edition. Boston: Boyer 3rd. ISBN 0936124199
• Ruckenstein, Lelia; O'Malley, James A. (2003). Everything Irish: The History, Literature, Art, Music, People, and Place. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 034546110X

Further reading

General surveys

• Fanning, Charles (1990/2000). The Irish Voice in America: 250 Years of Irish-American Fiction. Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press. ISBN 0813109701
• Glazier, Michael, ed. (1999). The Encyclopedia of the Irish in America. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0268027552
• Meagher, Timothy J. (2005). The Columbia Guide to Irish American History. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231120708
• Miller, Kerby M. (1985). Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195051874
• Negra, Diane (ed.) (2006). The Irish in Us. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. ISBN 0822337401
• Quinlan, Kieran (2005). Strange Kin: Ireland and the American South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. ISBN 9780807129838

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 ISBN 0452283612
• Bayor, Ronald; Meagher, Timothy (eds.) (1997) The New York Irish. Baltimore: University of Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 0801857643
• 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. ISBN 0813207312
• Clark, Dennis. (1982). The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience (2nd Ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 0877222274
• Diner, Hasia R. (1983). Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801828724
• English, T. J. (2005). Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. New York: ReganBooks. ISBN 0060590025
• Erie, Steven P. (1988). Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840—1985. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 0520071832
• Ignatiev, Noel (1996). How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415918251
• McCaffrey, Lawrence J. (1976). The Irish Diaspora in America. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America ISBN 0813208963
• Meagher, Timothy J. (2000). Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880-1928. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0268031541
• Mitchell, Brian C. (2006). The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821–61. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 025207338X
• Mulrooney, Margaret M. (ed.) (2003). Fleeing the Famine: North America and Irish Refugees, 1845–1851. New York: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 027597670X
• Noble, Dale T. (1986). Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0819561673
• O'Connor, Thomas H. (1995). The Boston Irish: A Political History. Old Saybrook, CT: Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 9781568526201
• O'Donnell, L. A. (1997). Irish Voice and Organized Labor in America: A Biographical Study. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press.

Protestant Irish

• Blethen, Tyler; Wood, Curtis W. Jr.; Blethen, H. Tyler (Eds.) (1997). Ulster and North America: Transatlantic Perspectives on the Scotch-Irish. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817308237
• Bolton, Charles Knowles (2006). Scotch Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company. ISBN 1428614877
• Cunningham, Roger (1991). Apples on the Flood: Minority Discourse and Appalachia. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 0870496298
• Fischer, David Hackett (1991). Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0195069056
• 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, NJ: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691074623
• Ford, Henry Jones (1915/2006). The Scotch-Irish in America. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing Company. ISBN 0548646953
• Leyburn, James G. (1989). The Scotch-Irish: A Social History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807842591
• Lorle, Porter (1999). A People Set Apart: The Scotch-Irish in Eastern Ohio. Zanesville, OH: Equine Graphics Publishing. ISBN 1887932755
• McWhiney, Grady (1988). Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways in the Old South. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817303286
• Webb, James (2004). Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. New York: Broadway. ISBN 0767916883

External links

• Irish America magazine - magazine for Irish Americans
• Irish Voice - newspaper for Irish Americans
• The Boston Irish Emigrant
• The New York Irish Emigrant
• Ancient Order of Hibernians
• IMDb.com Irish-American
• The Ireland Funds
• The Eire Society of Boston
• New York Irish Bars
• FDNY Emerald Society
• FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums
• National Conference of Law Enforcement Emerald Societies
• Irish Expatriate Discussion Forum
• Boston Irish Reporter
• American Presidents with Irish Ancestors
• IrishAmericanHistory.com - Irish American History
• Irish American Story Project
• News for Irish Americans

Communities

• Buffalo's Irish Community
• Detroit's Irish Community
• Kansas City's Irish Community
• Irish Community in Los Angeles
• Omaha's Irish Community
• Irish Philadelphia
• Pittsburgh Irish Network