Brian M Walker writes: There is at present much interest in the Irish diaspora, with television programmes on the subject and a new five-year strategy planned by the government.
Thirty years ago President Mary Robinson delivered her groundbreaking address on the Irish diaspora to the joint houses of the Oireachtas. She reminded us of the great diversity of the people of Ireland who had emigrated to create this diaspora and warned: ‘If we expect that the mirror held up to us by Irish communities abroad will show a single familiar identity or strain of Irishness, we will be disappointed. We will overlook the fascinating diversity of culture and choice which looks back at us.’
This is especially true about the 30-35 million Americans who acknowledge an Irish ancestry. The American-Irish are a very diverse population, which includes Irish-Americans, Scotch-Irish/Scots-Irish and other Irish from a Protestant background – a diversity which is often not fully appreciated. Fifty years ago there was little understanding in either Ireland or America of the real size and composition of the Irish in America. It was widely believed that there were 13-16 million in the US with Irish ancestry.
The general assumption was that most of these people were Irish-Americans, that is Catholic Irish or descendants of Catholic Irish who arrived in America in large numbers from the time of the Famine onwards. American historian LJ McCaffrey’s 1976 book, The Irish diaspora in America, dealt exclusively with the Catholic Irish-Americans.
What can we say about the Scotch-Irish/ Scots-Irish, the name sometimes given to eighteenth century Ulster immigrants whose families had originally come from Scotland and their descendants? Fifty years ago the Scotch-Irish were not greatly in evidence.
All these assumptions were to be greatly challenged by new evidence. For the first time, the American census of 1980 carried a question about ancestry. The outcome was that the census recorded a massive figure of 40.2 million people who declared an Irish ancestry. There was no return for numbers of Scotch-Irish, not a separate category in the 1980 census.
In the 1970s a series of social surveys by the National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) of the University of Chicago investigated the background of different ethnic groups, including the Irish. To considerable surprise it was discovered that of those Americans who recorded an Irish background, 56 per cent were Protestant. Other surveys in the 1980s confirmed that a majority of the Irish were Protestant. When in 1997 McCaffrey published a new edition of his book he changed the title to The Irish Catholic diaspora in America, in acknowledgement of the new understanding of the Irish in America.
The 1990 census recorded a total of 39 million Irish, including 12.3 single Irish identity, 10.4 who stated their first ancestry as Irish and 16 million who recorded their second ancestry as Irish. The census also reported 5.6 million Scotch-Irish, including 3 million single ancestry, 1.3 million first ancestry and 1.3 second ancestry. These figures show the intermarriage of many of the Irish and Scotch-Irish with other immigrant groups which helps to explain their growth in numbers.
It should be noted, however, as the 2000 US census bureau pointed out, the intent of the ancestry question was not to measure the degree of attachment a respondent had to a particular ethnicity. The Irish case was used to demonstrate the point: ‘For example, a response of Irish might reflect total involvement in an ‘Irish’ community or only a memory of ancestors several generations removed from the individual’.
For many Protestant Irish it is likely that their response to this question arose from personal awareness of their Irish roots, rather than involvement in ethnic Irish organisations, like many from a Catholic Irish background. At the same time, in census returns and surveys they are very willing to acknowledge their Irish ancestry and their links with Ireland.
How do we explain these very large numbers of Protestant Irish and Scotch-Irish? In the 1990s, Canadian Professor Don Akenson, the leading historian of the Irish diaspora, put forward three main explanations.
First, he drew attention to the initial wave of Irish immigrants who arrived in America in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, numbering over a quarter of a million. A majority were Ulster Presbyterians of Scottish origins. Because of their early arrival and due to a multiplier factor, there are now very large numbers of their descendants, many identifying as Scotch-Irish/Scots-Irish, but many more as Irish.
These people played an important role in the American Revolution, and afterwards. Among nineteenth century American presidents, there were three (Jackson, Buchanan and Arthur) who had a parent born in Ulster. Modern-day politicians from this background include the late Republican senator and presidential candidate John McCain, whose family came from Co Antrim to Virginia in the eighteenth century. Vice-president JD Vance has written about his Scots-Irish roots in his 2016 bestselling book, Hillbilly Elegy. He described himself as a ‘Scots-Irish hillbilly at heart’.
Secondly, Akenson pointed to the substantial number of Protestants from all parts of Ireland, Presbyterian and Church of Ireland, who continued to emigrate to America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Famine emigrants. Henry Ford’s grandfather, John, emigrated from Co Cork to Michigan in 1847. Former president Barack Obama’s ancestor, Fulmouth Kearney from Moneygall, Co Offaly, left for America in 1850.
Thirdly, there was an important stream of people from an Irish Catholic background who became Protestant. Ronald Reagan’s father was Catholic but he was brought up in the Protestant faith of his Scottish mother. Former vice-president Mike Pence is from this background, and is now an evangelical Protestant.
Figures for Irish and Scotch-Irish in the twenty-first century can be noted. The report of the 2013 American Community Survey (ACS) recorded that all those who claimed an Irish ancestry numbered nearly 34 million, including some 10 million who stated Irish as a single ancestry. The number who claimed a Scotch-Irish identity stood at just over 3 million, of whom 1.5 million recorded a single Scotch-Irish ancestry.
An ACS report from 2009 on the regional distribution of the Irish revealed, surprisingly, that the largest number of Irish were to be found, not in the Northeast (including New York and Boston) with 24 per cent, but in the South with 32 per cent. Of the Scotch-Irish, 51 per cent were in the South.
The 2006 NORC survey reported that of those who described their ancestry as Irish, 48 per cent were Protestant, 29 per cent were Catholic and 23 per cent were other or no religion. Most Scotch-Irish/Scots-Irish are Protestant, although we can note that JD Vance, from this background, is now a Catholic.
The American-Irish form the largest part of the worldwide Irish diaspora. For all these people, with their ancestral Irish roots and in their different ways, an Irish identity remains of value. Only recently have we become fully aware of their remarkable diversity, which challenges commonly held views of their numbers and make up.
Irish-Americans are a very important section of the American Irish, but they are a minority of the many millions who claim Irish ancestry, a fact that is often ignored in Ireland and America. Scotch-Irish/Scots-Irish are also a very important section, but they are a minority of the much greater number of Protestants, including many originally from Ulster, who acknowledge an Irish identity, a fact that is often ignored in Northern Ireland.
We will be wise to accept and celebrate the diversity of the Irish in America. Otherwise, as Mary Robinson stated in 1995, ‘we will miss the chance to have that dialogue with our own diversity which this reflection offers us’.
31/7/2025
Brian M Walker is Professor Emeritus of Irish Studies at Queen’s University Belfast and author of Irish history matters: politics, identities and commemoration (History Press)
