Most Irish Americans are Protestant

[King of Kensington]

Or at least Americans of Irish ancestry.  Probably few Protestants call themselves Irish Americans even if they occasionally acknowledge some distant Irish roots.

Based on the survey, 20 million Irish are Protestant Irish while 13.3 million are self-professed Catholic Irish with the rest not answering or no religion.

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-americans-are-more-protestant-than-catholic

[RI]

Don't forget that a ton of people claim Irish heritage without actually having any.

[TJ in Oregon]

The questions they asked are going to count the ubiquitous Scotch Irish Southerner in this, so that's not very surprising.

It would be surprising if the majority of people who selected Irish on the census were Protestants though.

[I’m not Stu]

That is not surprising. Some of them include some of my relatives. Many Americans have mixed ancestry as well, like me.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'm mostly Irish and a Protestant.  My mom's side is Scotch-Irish Protestant and my dad's side is Irish Catholic, though.

[Higgins]

I am of Irish and Italian descent, with some Spaniard mixed in. I wish to hell I were Scottish instead of Irish in my ancestry.

[RINO Tom]

The determining factor is obviously region, and I suppose there could be other lurking variables going back centuries ... but "Irish" Americans in the South are going to be mostly Protestant, and "Irish" Americans in urban areas across the North are going to be mostly Catholic.  Most people associate an "Irish American" very much with the latter.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

I'm part Irish and also Jewish so not too shocked tbh

[MarkD]

The determining factor is obviously region, and I suppose there could be other lurking variables going back centuries ... but "Irish" Americans in the South are going to be mostly Protestant, and "Irish" Americans in urban areas across the North are going to be mostly Catholic.  Most people associate an "Irish American" very much with the latter.

The regional observation makes a lot of sense. My mother's side is predominantly Irish Protestant and they're from southeast Missouri, near Poplar Bluff.

[King of Kensington]

Irish ancestry has dropped off a bit since 1990, disproportionately in the South and almost certainly on the Protestant side.

Still, today 32% of Irish ancestry respondents live in the South vs. 26% in the Northeast.  The latter are obviously Catholic.

[RINO Tom]

Irish ancestry has dropped off a bit since 1990, disproportionately in the South and almost certainly on the Protestant side.

Still, today 32% of Irish ancestry respondents live in the South vs. 26% in the Northeast.  The latter are obviously Catholic.

Probably more and more Americans identifying as ethically “American” - something I find historically ignorant and actually kind of undermining of American exceptionalism, ironically.  We’re NOT a nation of “a people,” we are a nation of ideals.  I actually think it’s important for our social fabric for Americans, no matter how mixed, to recognize their ancestors came from somewhere else (besides Natives, of course).

[AtorBoltox]

Irish
Protestant
Pick one

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I wish to hell I were Scottish instead of Irish in my ancestry.

Why do you care?

[Person Man]

Of course a lot of Southerners are going to have trace Irish ancestory without actually coming from a culturally Irish family because of the migration of rural Anglo-Celtic peoples from the North of England in the 1600s and 1700s to America into the Southern Highlands. A lof of people confuse "Scots Irish" and "Irish". Could that be it?

Or it could just be cultural assimilation running its course or even many conservative catholics in general finding that they have more culturally in common with local fundamentalist churches than even their conservative Catholic church. Now that's a weird dynamic. You have a lot of conservative Protestants becoming Catholic and a lot of conservative Catholics becoming fundamentalists.

[jimrtex]

Or at least Americans of Irish ancestry.  Probably few Protestants call themselves Irish Americans even if they occasionally acknowledge some distant Irish roots.

Based on the survey, 20 million Irish are Protestant Irish while 13.3 million are self-professed Catholic Irish with the rest not answering or no religion.

https://www.irishcentral.com/news/irish-americans-are-more-protestant-than-catholic

When I grew up, "nationality" was understood to be what is now known as "ancestry". Since everyone was obviously an American, there was no reason to add that on.

I suspect based on the intent of the survey, respondents were pushed to indicate an ancestry. Census results indicate that there is some suggestibility on this question.

They also asked detailed questions on religion. Of those who were Irish, about 40% were raised Catholic, and 40% were raised Protestant.

Someone who was baptized might say they were raised Catholic, even though their parents rarely attended mass. If they don't participate in mass or confession, they might say they were not Catholic, particularly if there were many questions about religious activity.

There may also be more conversions from Catholic to Protestant, than vice versa. Converts to Catholicism might be more prevalent among Episcopalians or Lutherans who are less likely to identify as Irish.

The 2020 Census permits Whites to indicate what type of White they are.

[  ] White – Print, for example, German, Irish, English, Italian,
Lebanese, Egyptian, etc.

__fill in the blank___

****************************

A more detailed explanation

White:

The category “White” includes all individuals who identify with one or more nationalities or ethnic groups originating in Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa. These groups include, but are not limited to, German, Irish, English, Italian, Lebanese, Egyptian, Polish, French, Iranian, Slavic, Cajun, and Chaldean.

****************************

That is they are pushing towards more of an ethnic characterization. The Census Bureau had considered adding a MENA category, so the list of suggested nationalities includes groups for Lebanese, Egyptian, Iranian, and Chaldean.

I had considered: "Alsatian, Swedish, English, German, Irish"

But eventually settled on "American"

The paper form has limited space for an answer. I don't know what would have happened if I had pressed return for my original long answer.

[King of Kensington]

Compared to the other nations of the British Isles, Irish ancestry is more likely to be "remembered"

A group once seen as severely disadvantaged (the term paddy wagon is an ethnic slur referring to the criminality of the Irish ethnic group), became very popular as it moved into the American mainstream, so that whites who have many different ancestors with different European ancestors are more likely to keep an identification with their Irish heritage.  Thus Michael Hoult and Joshua Goldstein were able to show how 4.5 million Irish immigrants became 40 million Irish Americans, not because they had exceptionally high fertility, but because the descendants of those Irish immigrants intermarried and their descendants preferred to keep an ethnic identity that was in part Irish.

http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/CP/AJP_conf_oct06_files/papers/Perlmann_Waters_draft.pdf

[King of Kensington]

Irish ancestry is often "played up" by politicians.  It's very "mainstream American" but at the same time allows them to identify with the experience of the struggling immigrant trying to make it in America. 

English is too plain vanilla and/or associated with the WASP elite, while there were two wars against Germany so we rarely hear them play up German roots.

[RINO Tom]

I would be interested to see a map that separates European ancestry by religion (Catholic vs. Protestant) like this ... I started thinking about this after I did a bunch of work on my family tree on Ancestry.com, and so far I have not found a single German ancestor that wasn't from Brandenburg (Prussia), and therefore predictably Lutheran (which we are now).  I would imagine most German Catholics in places like Wisconsin conversely trace their German heritage back to Bavaria, Austria or other Catholic German states?

[King of Kensington]

With German immigration, the regional and religious composition likely varied in different points of time.  Colonial era German immigration was Protestant.  Mid-19th century immigration I believe was more heavily Bavarian/Catholic than at any other time and post-1870 immigration from Germany was more Prussian/Protestant.

[RINO Tom]

With German immigration, the regional and religious composition likely varied in different points of time.  Colonial era German immigration was Protestant.  Mid-19th century immigration I believe was more heavily Bavarian/Catholic than at any other time and post-1870 immigration from Germany was more Prussian/Protestant.

Most of mine came over in the 1880s and 1890s, I think, so my anecdotal evidence agrees.