---
title: "The fading of the green: Fewer Americans identify as Irish"
description: "The ranks of Americans who trace their ancestry back to Ireland – long one of the most prominent subgroups in American society – are slowly declining."
date: "2017-03-17"
authors:
  - name: "Drew DeSilver"
    job_title: "Senior Writer/Editor"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/drew-desilver/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/03/17/the-fading-of-the-green/"
categories:
  - "Hispanic/Latino Identity"
  - "Immigration & Migration"
  - "Integration & Identity"
  - "Race & Ethnicity"
  - "Racial & Ethnic Identity"
---

# The fading of the green: Fewer Americans identify as Irish

![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FT_17.03.17_irish_trend2017.png)

On this St. Patrick's Day, here's news that might dampen the party: The ranks of Americans who trace their ancestry back to Ireland – long one of the most prominent subgroups in American society – are slowly declining.

In 2015, [32.7 million Americans](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2017/cb17-ff05.html?intcmp=sldr1), or one-in-ten, identified themselves as being of Irish ancestry, making it the second-largest ancestry group in the U.S. after Germans. In addition, nearly 3 million Americans claimed Scotch-Irish ancestry, or just under 1% of the entire population. (The Scotch-Irish were mainly Ulster Protestants [who migrated](http://www.ulsterscotssociety.com/about_the-great.html) to the British colonies in the decades before independence, while Irish Catholics didn't begin arriving in large numbers until the 1840s.) By comparison, the [Republic of Ireland](http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cpr/censusofpopulation2016-preliminaryresults/) and [Northern Ireland](http://www.nisra.gov.uk/population_clock/ClockText.html) have a combined population of about 6.6 million.

The ranks of both Irish and Scotch-Irish Americans have fallen a lot in the past two-and-a-half decades, and the trend does not appear likely to reverse. Two decades ago, in 1990, 38.7 million Americans (15.6% of the total population) claimed Irish ancestry, and 5.6 million (2.3%) identified as Scotch-Irish.

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 [Department of Homeland Security](https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2015/table10) statistics, just 1,607 Irish-born people obtained legal permanent residency.

![](https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FT_17.03.17_irish_states2017.png)

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 [settled in or close to](http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/publication/2008/03/20080307131416ebyessedo0.6800043.html#axzz4bakXPcrh) 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%) and Maine (17.6%).

The Scotch-Irish, who arrived earlier than the Irish in the early 1700s, moved to the [more mountainous interior](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/albion/abackcou.html) of what were then Britain's American colonies. To 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%).

*The Census Bureau has asked Americans to identify their [ethnic ancestry](http://www.census.gov/population/ancestry/data/) since 1980, and annually since 2005. Because they can pick 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.*

*Note: This is an update of a post originally published March 17, 2015. It has been updated to include newer data.*