Irish American

Irish American

Irish Americans are citizens of the United States who can trace their ancestry to Ireland. A total of 36,278,332 Americans—estimated at 11.9% of the total population—reported Irish ancestry in the 2008 American Community Survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Roughly another 3.5 million (or about another 1.2% of Americans) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry. The Irish diaspora population in the United States is roughly six times the modern population of Ireland.

The only self-reported ancestral group larger than Irish Americans is German Americans. The Irish are widely dispersed in terms of geography, and demographics. Irish American political leaders have played a major role in local and national politics since before the American Revolutionary War: eight Irish Americans signed the United States Declaration of Independence, and twenty-two American Presidents, from Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama, have been at least partly of Irish ancestry.

Read more about Irish American:  Religion, Discrimination, Sense of Heritage, Irish Americans in Politics and Government, Contributions To American Culture and Sport

Famous quotes containing the words irish and/or american:

    The next forenoon we went to Oldtown.... The Indian is said to cultivate the vices rather than the virtues of the white man. Yet this village was cleaner than I expected, far cleaner than such Irish villages as I have seen.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

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    Frances Wright (1795–1852)