Irish Catholics

Ethnoreligious group native to Ireland

This article is about the cultural group. For the newspaper, see The Irish Catholic.

Ethnic group

Irish Catholics

Celtic cross

Total population
4.6 million (Ireland)
55-60 million (notably in Canada and the Eastern and Central United States)
Regions with significant populations
Republic of Ireland| 4,000,000
Northern Ireland| 750,000
United States| ~20,000,000[1][2]
Canada| 5,000,000[3]
United Kingdom| 370,000[4]
Australia| 7,000,000[5][6]
Argentina| 500,000-1,000,000[7][8]
New Zealand (especially in Te Tai Poutini)[9]| 600,000[10]
France| 15,000[11]
Languages
English (Irish, American, Canadian, British, Australian and New Zealander), Irish (primarily Ireland), Spanish (Argentine and Mexican) and French (Canadian French, Metropolitan French)
Religion
Catholic Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Irish people, Irish diaspora, Irish Travellers, Irish Americans, Irish Canadians, Irish Australians, Irish New Zealanders, Irish Britons, Irish Argentines, Irish Mexicans, Irish French

Irish Catholics (Irish: Caitlicigh na hÉireann) are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland[12][13] whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens,[14] plus over 7 million Irish Australians, of whom around 67% adhere to Catholicism.[15][16][17]

## Overview and history

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Divisions between Irish Roman Catholics and Irish Protestants played a major role in the history of Ireland from the 16th century to the 20th century, especially during the Home Rule Crisis and the Troubles. While religion broadly marks the delineation of these divisions, the contentions were primarily political and they were also related to access to power. For example, while the majority of Irish Catholics had an identity which was independent from Britain's identity and were excluded from power because they were Catholic, a number of the instigators of rebellions against British rule were actually Protestant Irish nationalists, although most Irish Protestants opposed separatism. In the Irish Rebellion of 1798, Catholics and Presbyterians, who were not part of the established Church of Ireland, found common cause.

Irish Catholics are found in many countries around the world, especially in the Anglosphere. Emigration exponentially increased due to the Great Famine which lasted from 1845 to 1852. In the United States, anti-Irish sentiment and anti-Catholicism was espoused by the Know Nothing movement of the 1850s and other 19th-century anti-Catholic and anti-Irish organizations. By the 20th century, Irish Catholics were well established in the United States and today they are fully-integrated into mainstream American society with two Irish Catholic Presidents, John F. Kennedy and Joe Biden, having been elected.

## See also

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* Catholic Church in Ireland
* Celtic Christianity
* Cultural Christians
* Irish Americans
* Scotch-Irish Americans
* Irish Britons
* Irish Scots
* Irish Canadians
* Irish Newfoundlanders
* Irish Quebecers
* Irish Australians
* Irish New Zealanders
* Irreligion in the Republic of Ireland
* Penal Laws
* Religion in Northern Ireland
* Religion in the Republic of Ireland
* Saint Patrick's Day
* Ulster Protestants
* Ulster Scots people

## References

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1. ^ "Selected Social Characteristics in the United States (DP02): 2013 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved December 11, 2014.
2. ^ Carroll, Michael P. (Winter 2006). "How the Irish Became Protestant in America". Religion and American Culture. 16 (1). University of California Press: 25–54. doi:10.1525/rac.2006.16.1.25. JSTOR 10.1525/rac.2006.16.1.25. S2CID 145240474. "Of the 1,495 respondents who identified themselves as "Irish," 51 percent were Protestant and 36 percent were Catholic."
3. ^ "Ethnic Origin (264), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3), Generation Status (4), Age Groups (10) and Sex (3) for the Population in Private Households of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2011 National Household Survey". Statistics Canada. 2011. Archived from the original on 2019-12-09. Retrieved 2019-06-03.
4. ^ "Irish population in United Kingdom".
5. ^ "Ancestry Information Operations Unlimited Company - Press Release". www.ancestryeurope.lu. Archived from the original on 7 September 2017. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
6. ^ "Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern T.D., announces Grants to Irish Community Organisations in the Southern Hemisphere" (Press release). Department of Foreign Affairs. 26 September 2007. Archived from the original on 28 July 2013. Retrieved 2 June 2019.
7. ^ "Western People: Flying the Irish flag in Argentina". Western People. March 14, 2007. Archived from the original on December 18, 2007. Retrieved June 2, 2019.
8. ^ "IrishAboard.com = Irish Social Networking Worldwide". www.irishaboard.com.[permanent dead link]
9. ^ "Story: Irish". Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Archived from the original on 2021-11-26. Retrieved 2021-11-26.
10. ^ "The Irish in New Zealand: Historical Contexts and Perspectives - Brian Easton". www.eastonbh. 14 June 2003. Archived from the original on 2020-02-17. Retrieved 2019-06-03.
11. ^ "Prếsentation de l'Irlande". France Diplomatie : : Ministḕre de l'Europe des Affaires ễtrangễres.[permanent dead link]
12. ^ Evans, Jocelyn; Tonge, Jonathan (2013). "Catholic, Irish and Nationalist: evaluating the importance of ethno-national and ethno-religious variables in determining nationalist political allegiance in Northern Ireland". Nations and Nationalism. 19 (2): 357–375. doi:10.1111/nana.12005.
13. ^ Nicolson, Murray W. "Irish Tridentine Catholicism in Victorian Toronto: Vessel for Ethno-religious Persistence" (PDF). CCHA. Study Sessions (50 (1983)): 415–436. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-11-01. Retrieved 2017-07-02 - via University of Manitoba.
14. ^ "U.S. Census". U.S. Census Bureau. Archived from the original on 11 February 2020. Retrieved 13 April 2008.
15. ^ "2021 People in Australia who were born in Ireland, Census Country of birth QuickStats | Australian Bureau of Statistics". www.abs.gov.au. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
16. ^ "Ancestry | Australia | Community profile". profile.id.com.au. Retrieved 2023-10-23.
17. ^ "Cultural diversity: Census, 2021 | Australian Bureau of Statistics". www.abs.gov.au. 2022-01-12. Retrieved 2023-10-23.

* ISBN 0-8132-0896-3
* ISBN 978-0-8132-0896-1

## Further reading

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### Catholic Irish

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* 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 0-452-28361-2
* Anbinder, Tyler, "Moving beyond 'Rags to Riches': New York's Irish Famine Immigrants and Their Surprising Savings Accounts," Journal of American History 99 (December 2012), 741–70.
* Barr, Colin (2020). Ireland's Empire: The Roman Catholic Church in the English-Speaking World, 1829–1914. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139644327
* Bayor, Ronald; Meagher, Timothy (eds.) (1997) The New York Irish. Baltimore: University of Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 0-8018-5764-3
* 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 0-8132-0731-2
* Clark, Dennis (1982). The Irish in Philadelphia: Ten Generations of Urban Experience (2nd Ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-227-4
* English, T. J. (2005). Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. New York: ReganBooks. ISBN 0-06-059002-5
* Ebest, Ron. "The Irish Catholic Schooling of James T. Farrell, 1914–23." Éire-Ireland 30.4 (1995): 18-32 excerpt.
* Erie, Steven P. (1988). Rainbow's End: Irish-Americans and the Dilemmas of Urban Machine Politics, 1840—1985. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-07183-2
* Fanning, Charles, and Ellen Skerrett. "James T. Farrell and Washington Park: The Novel as Social History." Chicago History 8 (1979): 80–91.
* French, John. "Irish-American Identity, Memory, and Americanism During the Eras of the Civil War and First World War." (PhD Dissertation, Marquette University, 2012). Online
* Gleeson. David T. The Green and the Gray: The Irish in the Confederate States of America (U of North Carolina Press, 2013); online review
* Ignatiev, Noel (1996). How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-91825-1
* Jensen, Richard. (2002) "'No Irish Need Apply': A Myth of Victimization". Journal of Social History 36.2 pp. 405–429 online Archived 2005-02-08 at the Wayback Machine
* Kenny, Kevin. "Abraham Lincoln and the American Irish." American Journal of Irish Studies (2013): 39–64.
* Kenny, Kevin (2000). The American Irish: A History. New York: Longman, 2000. ISBN 978-0582278172
* McCaffrey, Lawrence J. (1976). The Irish Diaspora in America. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America ISBN 0-8132-0896-3
* McKelvey, Blake. "The Irish in Rochester An Historical Retrospect." Rochester History 19: 1–16. online, on Rochester New York
* Meagher, Timothy J. (2000). Inventing Irish America: Generation, Class, and Ethnic Identity in a New England City, 1880–1928. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 0-268-03154-1
* Mitchell, Brian C. (2006). The Paddy Camps: The Irish of Lowell, 1821–61. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-07338-X
* Mulrooney, Margaret M. (ed.) (2003). Fleeing the Famine: North America and Irish Refugees, 1845–1851. New York: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-97670-X
* Noble, Dale T. (1986). Paddy and the Republic: Ethnicity and Nationality in Antebellum America. Middleton, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press. ISBN 0-8195-6167-3
* O'Connor, Thomas H. (1995). The Boston Irish: A Political History. Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky. ISBN 978-1-56852-620-1
* O'Donnell, L. A. (1997). Irish Voice and Organized Labor in America: A Biographical Study. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
* Rogers, James Silas and Matthew J O'Brien, eds. After the Flood: Irish America, 1945–1960 (2009), Specialized essays by scholars
* Sim, David. (2013) A Union Forever: The Irish Question and US Foreign Relations in the Victorian Age (Cornell University Press, 2013)
* The Irish Cultural, Political, Social, and Religious Heritages
* Ireland: The Rise of Irish Nationalism, 1801–1850
* Emigrants and Immigrants
* Communities in Conflict: American Nativists and Irish Catholics
* Irish-American Politics
* Irish America and the Course of Irish Nationalism
* From Ghetto to Suburbs: From Someplace to Noplace?
* Endnotes

## External links

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* Library of Congress Archived 2011-08-18 at the Wayback Machine
* The Irish Catholic Diaspora in America, describes the book ISBN 0-8132-0896-3
* On Irish Catholics of Australia