{"id":12145,"date":"2017-03-17T10:15:43","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T15:15:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/the-fading-of-the-green\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:16:55","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:16:55","slug":"the-fading-of-the-green","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2017\/03\/17\/the-fading-of-the-green\/","title":{"rendered":"The fading of the green: Fewer Americans identify as Irish"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-photo alignright wp-image-289075 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/FT_17.03.17_irish_trend2017.png\" width=\"310\" height=\"366\" data-attachid=\"289075\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On this St. Patrick&#8217;s Day, here&#8217;s news that might dampen the party: The ranks of Americans who trace their ancestry back to Ireland \u2013 long one of the most prominent subgroups in American society \u2013 are\u00a0slowly declining.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2015, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/newsroom\/facts-for-features\/2017\/cb17-ff05.html?intcmp=sldr1\">32.7 million Americans<\/a>,\u00a0or one-in-ten,\u00a0identified themselves as being of Irish ancestry, making it the second-largest ancestry group in the U.S. after Germans.\u00a0In addition, nearly 3 million Americans claimed\u00a0Scotch-Irish ancestry, or just under 1% of the entire population.\u00a0(The Scotch-Irish were mainly\u00a0Ulster Protestants <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ulsterscotssociety.com\/about_the-great.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">who migrated<\/a> to the British colonies in the decades before independence, while\u00a0Irish Catholics didn&#8217;t begin arriving in large numbers until the 1840s.)\u00a0By comparison, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cso.ie\/en\/releasesandpublications\/ep\/p-cpr\/censusofpopulation2016-preliminaryresults\/\">Republic of Ireland<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nisra.gov.uk\/population_clock\/ClockText.html\">Northern Ireland<\/a> have a combined population of about 6.6\u00a0million.<!--more--><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The ranks\u00a0of both Irish and Scotch-Irish Americans have\u00a0fallen a lot in the past two-and-a-half decades, and the trend does not appear likely to reverse. Two decades ago, in\u00a01990, 38.7 million Americans (15.6% of the total population) claimed Irish ancestry, and 5.6 million (2.3%) identified as Scotch-Irish.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Both ancestral groups are older than the U.S. population as a whole. In 2013, the median age of those claiming Irish ancestry was 40.5, and 52.1 for those of Scotch-Irish ancestry, versus a median age of 37.8 for the entire population. Nor are the Irish immigrating to the U.S. in anything close to the numbers they used to: In fiscal 2015, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/immigration-statistics\/yearbook\/2015\/table10\">Department of Homeland Security<\/a> statistics, just 1,607 Irish-born people obtained legal permanent residency.<\/p>\n\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-photo alignright wp-image-289076 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/beta.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/FT_17.03.17_irish_states2017.png\" width=\"200\" height=\"448\" data-attachid=\"289076\"><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Irish and Scotch-Irish Americans are most highly concentrated in a few areas of the country, reflecting their historical migration patterns. The poor Irish immigrants who fled their famine-stricken homeland in the 1840s and 1850s generally <a href=\"http:\/\/iipdigital.usembassy.gov\/st\/english\/publication\/2008\/03\/20080307131416ebyessedo0.6800043.html#axzz4bakXPcrh\">settled in or close to<\/a> the Northeastern port cities where they first arrived. New England states continue to have the highest share of residents claiming Irish ancestry: Massachusetts (21.6%), New Hampshire (21.0%), Rhode Island (18.3%), Vermont (17.9%)\u00a0and Maine (17.6%).<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Scotch-Irish, who arrived earlier than the Irish in the early 1700s, moved to the <a href=\"http:\/\/xroads.virginia.edu\/~UG97\/albion\/abackcou.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more mountainous interior<\/a>\u00a0of what were then Britain&#8217;s\u00a0American colonies.\u00a0To this day, the states with the highest share of residents claiming Scotch-Irish ancestry are North Carolina (2.6%), South Carolina (2.4%), Tennessee (2.2%) and West Virginia (2.0%).<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>The Census Bureau has asked Americans to identify their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.census.gov\/population\/ancestry\/data\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ethnic ancestry<\/a>\u00a0since 1980, and annually since 2005. Because they can\u00a0pick one or two, we counted everyone who chose Irish or Scotch-Irish as their primary or secondary ancestry. We used one-year estimates for nationwide Irish and Scotch-Irish populations, and 2011-2015 five-year estimates for state-level populations.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Note: This is an update of a post originally published March 17, 2015. It has been updated to include newer\u00a0data.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ranks of Americans who trace their ancestry back to Ireland \u2013 long one of the most prominent subgroups in American society \u2013 are slowly 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