Where the Irish Are in America

“… the Irish identity is as much a product of those who left our shores as those who stayed at home” . Conor Lenihan, Minister for Integration, 2008

Boston, Massachusetts, might well be regarded as the capital of Irish America. As a percentage of the population, Massachusetts is the most Irish state, with about a quarter of the population claiming Irish descent. New England remains the most Irish-American part of the country, with New Hampshire contributing a good portion of its population.

Other cities in America with a large Irish population are Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Interestingly, because of its history as a mining center, Butte, Montana, is also one of the country’s most thoroughly Irish-American cities. Many of the miners from the Beara Peninsula, who had worked in the copper mines in Allihes in southwest Cork, traveled to Butte for work in the mines.

There are large populations of Irish Americans in the South, as well, particularly in Charleston (South Carolina) and New Orleans (Louisiana) and also in Washington, DC, and the states of Delaware and Florida.