Ireland did not stay in Ireland. This is the American half of the story: the festivals and Highland games worth a weekend, the memorials and museums that carry it, and the cultural centres where the music, the language and the games carry on all year.
What's here
694 listings across 50 states, every one checked against its official website before it appears: 604 Irish pubs & restaurants, 53 St Patrick's Day parades, 18 festivals & Highland games, 7 cultural centres & museums, 2 heritage places & memorials and 10 Irish publications.
Find it your way
Three ways in: by state, from the browse by state list below; by name or city, in the pubs & restaurants database, which searches all 604 pubs; or by the kind of place, using the map and category tabs on this page.
Restaurant reviews
The directory tells you where the Irish pubs and restaurants are. The reviews are the slower work: sit down, order the food, listen to the room, and write down honestly whether it feels like Ireland or only looks like it. Reviews are starting on the reviews page, one restaurant at a time, beginning close to home in Florida.
Find it on the map
On the interactive map, every listing below sits as a gold pin on its city, from Phoenix to Boston. Pick a state on the map (or in the browse list) to narrow the page to that state, and use the category tabs to narrow it further; the two work together, and every listing also has its own state page below.
A one-day festival in northern Colorado that bills itself as a halfway-to-St-Patrick's-Day party: outdoor stages, step dancing lessons, and a culture centre indoors with talks on Irish and Irish-American history.
The Greeley festival keeps to one full day each September. Alongside the music there is a culture centre programme of speakers and displays on the history of the Irish in America, a kids' arts and crafts area, and the annual Irish bean bag toss tournament, which takes itself exactly as seriously as it should.
Children 12 and under are admitted free with an adult, per the organisers.
The 20th festival is set for Saturday 18 September 2027 on the organisers' site.
Winter Springs, Florida · Central Winds Park, 1000 Central Winds Drive, Winter Springs · 16–17 Jan 2027 (dates to confirm)
Caber tossing in the Florida January sunshine: two days of Highland athletics, pipe bands and clan tents in a lakeside park north of Orlando, run by the Scottish-American Society of Central Florida.
The games fill the third weekend of January, when Central Florida is at its best for standing in a field all day. Expect the full heavy-events card, Highland dancing, Celtic music stages and the clan tents, where the surname conversations start that end, for some families, in a trip to Ireland or Scotland.
Parking is off-site at satellite lots with free shuttle buses to the park, per the organisers; buy a programme at the gate for the day's running order.
The games run on the third weekend of January. The 2027 dates are confirmed on the official site nearer the time.
Marathon, Florida · Marathon Community Park, 200 36th Street, Marathon · 9–10 Jan 2027
Highland games and Donegal harmonies in the middle Keys: a two-day January festival with the Screaming Orphans from Co. Donegal on the bill and afternoon tea served in the Iona Tea tent.
The Keys festival is small and knows it: music, dance, heavy events and Celtic food vendors in a waterfront park, with the Atlantic a short walk away. The 2027 edition has the Screaming Orphans, four sisters from Donegal, among the headline acts.
One-day tickets were listed at $13 and two-day at $18 on the festival's ticket page when checked; the tea tent's afternoon tea is a separate $15 ticket.
Savannah, Georgia · Alee Temple, Savannah · 6–7 Feb 2027
The February warm-up for the biggest St Patrick's season in the American South: an indoor, volunteer-run festival of music, dance and storytelling that has opened Savannah's Irish season since 1993.
Savannah's Irish roots run back to the 1830s and the labourers who built the city's railroads and docks, and the festival is run entirely by volunteers from that community. The 2026 edition added a whiskey tasting to the usual run of stages, cultural talks and children's activities.
The city's St Patrick's Day parade follows a month later, so February is the connoisseur's choice: the same community, smaller crowds.
The organisers have announced 6 and 7 February 2027 at the Alee Temple.
Stone Mountain Highland Games and Scottish Festival
Stone Mountain, Georgia · Stone Mountain Park, Stone Mountain · 15–17 Oct 2027
Scotland in Georgia for over fifty years: pipe bands, Highland athletics and clan tents in the meadows of Stone Mountain Park, with Friday events at the host hotel before the games proper on Saturday and Sunday.
The 55th games are scheduled for October 2027. Friday's programme runs at the host hotel (the Hilton Atlanta Northeast) and the meadows take over for the weekend: athletics, piping and drumming championships, Highland dancing judged by an international panel, and country dancing for anyone willing to be taught.
The organisers are plain that the games run rain or shine with no refunds, and that no pets are allowed on the grounds; a shuttle taxi service runs for visitors with limited mobility.
Friday 15 October is host-hotel events; the games in the park run Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 October 2027.
Timonium, Maryland · Maryland State Fairgrounds, Cow Palace, 2200 York Road, Timonium · 13–15 Nov 2026
An indoor November festival at the Maryland State Fairgrounds: the 52nd edition runs Friday evening to Sunday, with two ceilis, a traditional Irish breakfast and Sunday Mass built into the weekend.
The festival is run by Irish Charities of Maryland, a volunteer charity, and has settled into the second weekend of November. Being indoors in the Cow Palace removes the weather gamble entirely. The 2026 programme has music across two halls, Irish dancers, cultural exhibits and workshops, and a Saturday night ceili plus a Sunday family ceili for first-timers.
Sunday opens with Mass at 10.30am before the festival floor opens at noon.
St Paul, Minnesota · Harriet Island Regional Park, St Paul · 13–15 Aug 2027 (dates to confirm)
Three August days on an island in the Mississippi across from downtown St Paul: six stages of music and dance, a Croke Park field for hurling and camogie demonstrations, and a crowd the organisers put among the largest at any Irish festival in the country.
The fair is run by a volunteer-led nonprofit and every dollar of profit goes back into Minnesota's Irish cultural community or to new immigrant groups through its Legacy Fund. Children 12 and under go free, which is part of why the place feels like a family reunion with stages.
Sunday's programme includes Mass on the island at 10.15am before the gates open in earnest.
The fair runs on the second weekend of August. The 2027 dates are announced on the official site.
Kansas City, Missouri · Crown Center, Kansas City · 3–5 Sep 2027 (dates to confirm)
Labor Day weekend at Crown Center: seven stages of traditional music and Celtic rock, heritage workshops, and the city's largest outdoor Catholic Mass on the Sunday morning.
Kansas City's Irish story starts with the labourers and railroad men of the West Bottoms, and the festival grew out of the old Brookside and Westport Irish festivals merging into one. It now takes over Crown Center and Washington Square Park for three days.
Parking in the Crown Center garages is free at weekends, and the streetcar stop at Union Station is a short walk from the gates.
The festival is always Labor Day weekend at Crown Center. The 2027 dates are confirmed on the official site nearer the time.
Lincoln, New Hampshire · Loon Mountain Resort, 60 Loon Mountain Road, Lincoln · 17–19 Sep 2027
Three days of games at a White Mountains ski resort at the start of foliage season: heavy athletics, massed bands, sheepdog trials and try-it sessions in street curling and stone lifting.
The 52nd games are set for the third weekend of September 2027. NHSCOT, the nonprofit behind them, runs seminars alongside the spectacle, on subjects from Scottish cooking to genealogy, which makes this one of the better games for anyone starting on family history.
There is no parking at the venue itself: park in the designated lots in Lincoln and Woodstock and take the free shuttle buses up the mountain, per the organisers. Only service animals are permitted on the grounds during the games.
East Durham, New York · Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre, Route 145, East Durham · 29–31 May 2027 (dates to confirm)
The 50th festival in the Irish Alps: Memorial Day weekend in the Catskills village that Irish New York adopted as its summer home, all music, dance and Mass on the Sunday morning.
East Durham's green hills reminded homesick emigrants of Ireland so strongly that the town became a resort colony of Irish boarding houses, dance halls and pubs, and the festival is its anchor weekend. It runs on the grounds of the Michael J. Quill Irish Cultural and Sports Centre, which also hosts Catskills Irish Arts Week in July and Gaelic games through the summer.
Greene County's own tourism board confirms the 50th festival returns over Memorial Day weekend 2027; exact running days are announced on the festival site.
Memorial Day weekend 2027. Check the official site for the confirmed days and lineup.
Frankfort, New York · Herkimer County Fairgrounds, Frankfort · The 2027 dates are announced on the official site; recent editions have run over a summer weekend at the fairgrounds.
The Mohawk Valley's big Irish weekend at the county fairgrounds east of Utica: three stages, a bagpipe competition, a cultural building, Gaelic football and a 5K Ranger Run.
The festival fills the Herkimer County Fairgrounds for a long weekend, with the High Kings and Enter the Haggis class of headliners on the contemporary stage and a full traditional stage beside it. The cultural building and the genealogy help inside it are the quiet draw for roots hunters.
Camping near the grounds and free on-site parking have been the pattern in past years; confirm both on the official site for the edition you attend.
Four July days in a meadow a mile up a Blue Ridge mountain: the largest clan gathering in American Highland games, with athletics, piping championships and clan tents as far as the field runs.
The games began in 1956, modelled on the Braemar Gathering, and the setting does half the work: MacRae Meadows sits on the flank of Grandfather Mountain, and the sound of the massed bands carries off the ridges. Around the athletics there are sheepdog demonstrations, Highland dancing, fiddle and harp competitions and a Celtic music programme.
The organisers note that the detailed 2027 schedule is still being finalised; the dates themselves are set. Book accommodation in the Linville and Banner Elk area early, because the mountain fills.
Dublin, Ohio · Coffman Park, Dublin · 6–8 Aug 2027
Dublin, Ohio does the name proud: a three-day August festival across 29 acres and eight stages in Coffman Park, run by the city, which marks its 40th anniversary in 2027.
The festival started in 1988 with a few dancers and a band called the Irish Brigade, and the city has run it since 1992. Alongside the music stages there is a genealogy area, cultural exhibits, the Columbus Feis running in parallel, and a Sunday that opens with services including a traditional Irish Mass.
Parking in the festival's official lots is free, with a free shuttle from Metro Place, per the organisers. The 2027 edition, the 40th, runs 6 to 8 August.
Irish music under two 92-foot blast furnaces: three September days at a National Historic Landmark on the Monongahela, with a hedge school, a genealogy pavilion and all 32 counties in one exhibit.
The setting is the story here. The Carrie Furnaces are what is left of the Homestead steel works, where generations of Irish Pittsburghers worked, and the festival has made the site its own: four performance areas, a cultural hedge school teaching history, language and music, and stone lifting and hurling demonstrations on the ground.
Sunday starts with Mass at 10am and the traditional Irish breakfast (book it ahead on the festival site). The organisers' own 2026 programme confirms the next festival for 10 to 12 September 2027.
A free Celtic festival that takes over the streets of downtown Bethlehem on the last weekend of September: the US National Highland Games Championship, the Showing of the Tartan parade, and five stages of music.
The Celtic Cultural Alliance has run the Classic since 1988 and keeps it free, which is why the crowds are measured in the hundreds of thousands. The Highland games championship closes with the caber toss; around it run pipe band and drum major competitions, Irish and Highland dancing, a fiddle competition and the clan and society tents of Celtic Heritage Hollow.
Downtown Bethlehem is a Moravian settlement town founded in 1741, and the festival streets sit inside a National Historic Landmark district, which makes the walk between stages half the pleasure.
The festival runs on the last weekend of September. The 2027 dates are announced by the Celtic Cultural Alliance on the official site.
The 30th festival, this November: two days of Celtic music, Highland games and Irish dance on a living-history farm in north Austin, run by volunteers as a nonprofit. Tickets are online only; there are no gate sales.
The festival is produced by the Austin Celtic Association and the Celtic Cultural Center of Texas. Beyond the stages there is a school of traditional arts running workshops from beginner to master level, a Celtic dog parade for registered Celtic breeds, and heavy games running all day both days.
Practical points from the organisers: buy tickets in advance online (adults $25 a day, $40 for the weekend when checked), bring a chair or blanket because seating is limited, and leave the dog at home unless it is a registered parade dog. Rain or shine.
Denton, Texas · North Texas Fairgrounds, 2217 North Carroll Boulevard, Denton · 13–14 Mar 2027
One of the largest Irish festivals in the United States moves house: after more than forty years at Dallas's Fair Park, the 2027 festival opens at the North Texas Fairgrounds in Denton, run as ever by volunteers.
The Southwest Celtic Music Association has produced the festival since 1983 with an all-volunteer crew, and its musical brief is the strictest of the big American festivals: traditional music first. The move to Denton puts ticketing, food and security back under the festival's own control, which the organisers say plainly was the reason for leaving Fair Park.
Denton is a music town in its own right, about 40 minutes north of Dallas. Expect the format to carry over unchanged: multiple stages, step dancing, storytelling, cultural demonstrations and the dog-friendly policy the festival is known for.
Announced by the organisers for 13 and 14 March 2027 in Denton. Lineup and ticket details follow on the official site.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin · Henry Maier Festival Park, 200 North Harbor Drive, Milwaukee · Four days in August at Henry Maier Festival Park. The festival is held on the third weekend of August; the 2027 dates are announced on the official site.
The big one: four August days on Milwaukee's lakefront with seventeen stages, currach races on the lagoon, a genealogy tent and a school of Irish music behind it all year round.
The organisers bill it as the world's largest Irish music festival, and the numbers are theirs to defend: around 250 acts on 17 stages across 75 acres, drawing well over 100,000 people. It has run since 1981 and is produced by CelticMKE, which also keeps the Ward Irish Music Archives and a summer school going when the festival is over.
The genealogy tent is a serious operation for a music festival, and the Sunday closes with the Scattering, when fifty or more of the weekend's musicians take one stage together.
Phoenix, Arizona · 1106 North Central Avenue, Margaret Hance Park, Phoenix
An Irish castle in the middle of the Phoenix desert: a three-storey library built to look like a 12th-century Irish castle, a genealogy centre, a cottage modelled on a Bunratty farmhouse, and a famine memorial on the grounds.
The McClelland Library is the building Dave's readers picture: three storeys of Irish blue limestone put up by an Irish stonemason, holding more than 6,000 books on Irish genealogy, literature and history. The second floor is the Frances B. McClelland Genealogy Research Centre, where volunteers help visitors start on their own family lines. A full-colour facsimile of the Book of Kells is on permanent display.
The rest of the grounds work like a small Irish village: the Great Hall (An Halla Mor) for ceilis and concerts, a cottage built after a farmhouse in Bunratty, Co. Clare, complete with a peat-burning fireplace, and the An Gorta Mor memorial to the Great Hunger. The centre grew out of Phoenix's sister-city link with Ennis, Co. Clare, and its classes run from Irish language to dance and music through the Academy of Irish and Celtic Studies.
Visiting: Hours change with the season. In autumn and winter the library opens Tuesday to Thursday and Saturday, 10am to 3pm, and Friday 3pm to 8pm; the centre closes for August. Check the official site before you travel.
San Francisco, California · 2700 45th Avenue, San Francisco
San Francisco's Irish home since 1975, out by the zoo: a library, a bar and hall for concerts and ceilis, and Irish language classes that draw some of the biggest learner gatherings in the country.
The centre has been the west coast anchor of Irish America for fifty years. The programme is the draw: Saturday Irish language classes, traditional music sessions, concerts, a summer Irish camp for children and the Leo T. Walsh scholarship programme for young musicians and dancers.
If you are passing through the city, time a visit to an event night rather than a quiet weekday. The centre's own calendar carries what is on, from set dancing to visiting speakers from Ireland.
Visiting: Programme-led: classes, concerts and events run through the year rather than set visiting hours. Check the calendar on the official site.
Oak Forest, Illinois · 6119 West 147th Street, Oak Forest
Chicago's GAA home ground in Oak Forest: full-size Gaelic football and hurling pitches, the Carraig Pub, and an Irish Fest on the grounds each year, in recent years held in late August.
Gaelic Park is where Chicago's Irish play their own games. Through the summer the pitches host the city's Gaelic football and hurling clubs, and the calendar fills with concerts, dances, a book club, Irish film nights and the Chicago Feis, one of the longest-running Irish dance competitions in North America.
The park's own line is that they are Irish 365 days a year, and the programme backs it up. The Irish Fest on the grounds is the big outdoor weekend; the 2027 dates are announced on the official site.
Visiting: Open year-round. Match days, the pub and events run to the calendar on the official site.
Chicago, Illinois · 4626 North Knox Avenue, Chicago
A former school in Chicago's Mayfair neighbourhood turned into an Irish city under one roof: the Fifth Province Pub, a museum, a library, an art gallery and a theatre.
The centre fills a whole school building, which gives it room for the things smaller centres cannot hold: a working pub with Friday ceilis, a museum and gallery, a library, Irish language and genealogy groups, and the Mayfair Theatre for concerts and plays.
It is the practical first stop for anyone in the Midwest starting on family history: the library and the centre's genealogy volunteers are used to first questions.
Visiting: Open daily; the pub, classes and events run to their own hours on the official site.
Canton, Massachusetts · 200 New Boston Drive, Canton
Forty-six acres of Ireland twenty minutes from downtown Boston: four GAA pitches, a pub, a library and a year-round run of concerts, classes and set dancing, built mostly by Irish and Irish-American volunteers.
Founded in 1989 with support from the Irish Government's Emigrant Support Programme, the Canton centre is one of the largest Irish campuses in the United States. Summer weekends belong to Gaelic games on the four fields; the main building holds the pub restaurant, a performance space and the resource library.
The St Patrick's season programme runs for weeks, not a day, and the centre's Galway Races celebration night is a fixture of the Boston Irish summer.
Visiting: Open year-round to the public. Weekday office hours; the pub, matches and events run evenings and weekends. Check the calendar on the official site.
West Springfield, Massachusetts · 429 Morgan Road, West Springfield
The Irish House Restaurant and Trinity Pub on ten acres in West Springfield: a working Irish pub with a fireplace and a snug, a Sunday trad session, and an athletic field outside.
The centre took over the former Elks Lodge on Morgan Road in 2015 and rebuilt it in stages: a handcrafted bar and pub modelled on a Dublin local, a restaurant run by the Delaney House team, meeting rooms and a library and museum in progress.
The programme leans social: concerts, lectures, Irish language and history classes, and group trips to Ireland for patrons. The Sunday trad session, early afternoon, is the easiest way in.
Visiting: The restaurant and pub open most evenings, Tuesday to Sunday; the office keeps weekday hours. Check the official site for current times.
New York State's own Irish museum, chartered by the Board of Regents: exhibits on the famine, the Erie Canal Irish and the Irish in the Civil War, a library, and a traditional music session in the building.
The museum was created by the New York State Legislature in 1986 and holds a permanent education charter, the only Irish museum in America with that standing. Its exhibitions work through the Irish-American story thematically; the Erie Canal material is the standout, since Irish navvies dug much of the canal and Albany was one of its great labour towns.
Allow an hour to ninety minutes. The Paul O'Dwyer Library and the Ancient Order of Hibernians' archives are on site for anyone starting family research.
Visiting: Wednesday to Friday 11am to 4pm, Saturday and Sunday 12 noon to 4pm; closed Monday and Tuesday.
Boston, Massachusetts · Corner of Washington Street and School Street, Downtown Crossing, Boston
Two families in bronze on a downtown plaza: one starving in Ireland in the 1840s, one standing prosperous in America, looking back. Eight plaques around them tell the famine story and Boston's part in the relief effort.
The memorial opened in 1998, raised by Boston's Irish community under the late Thomas Flatley, himself a Co. Mayo emigrant of 1950. Sculptor Robert Shure set the two family groups facing each other across the small park: the Ireland of the coffin ships and the America the survivors built.
It stands a few blocks from the waterfront streets where more than 100,000 famine Irish landed in Boston, and the city's Irish Heritage Trail passes it. There is no visitor centre and nothing to book: it is a public plaza, and fifteen quiet minutes is the right way to see it.
Visiting: A public plaza on the Freedom Trail, open at all hours, free.
Checked 2026-10-23
Irish Hunger Memorial
New York, New York · North End Avenue at Vesey Street, Battery Park City, New York
A half-acre of Ireland raised above a Manhattan street: a roofless stone cottage brought from Co. Mayo, a stone from every one of the 32 counties, and an overlook facing the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.
Artist Brian Tolle built the memorial as a piece of the country the famine Irish left: an abandoned field, a ruined cottage from Carradoogan, Co. Mayo, and stones gathered from every county in Ireland, set into a hillside that rises 25 feet over the pavement.
Dedicated in 2002 and kept by the Battery Park City Authority, it is the most considered ten minutes you can spend on Irish America in New York: the path climbs from the famine field to the cantilevered overlook, and the view at the top is of the harbour the emigrant ships crossed to reach.
Visiting: Open daily, free. Hours are 8am to 9pm from May to October and 8am to 7pm from November to April (Battery Park City Authority).
Atlanta, Georgia · Peachtree Street and 15th Street, Midtown Atlanta · 13 Mar 2027
Atlanta's parade, first held in 1858 and presented by Irish Network Atlanta and the Atlanta St. Patrick's Foundation, runs down Peachtree Street in Midtown.
Run by Atlanta St. Patrick's Foundation and Irish Network Atlanta.
St. Augustine, Florida · Francis Field, 25 W. Castillo Drive, St. Augustine · 13 Mar 2027
St. Augustine's parade returns in 2027 under the Foundation for Scottish Athletics as part of the revived St. Augustine Celtic Festival and Highland Games at Francis Field.
San Diego, California · Fifth Avenue and Laurel Street, Balboa Park, San Diego · 13 Mar 2027
San Diego's parade steps off at Fifth Avenue and Laurel Street at the edge of Balboa Park and is organized by the Irish Congress of Southern California.
New Orleans, Louisiana · Magazine Street, Irish Channel, New Orleans · March 2027, date to confirm
The Irish Channel St. Patrick's Day Club, organized in 1947, holds a pre-parade Mass at St. Mary's Assumption Church before marching up Magazine Street, with riders throwing cabbages and Irish stew ingredients.
Run by Irish Channel St. Patrick's Day Club, Inc..
Louisville, Kentucky · Broadway and Baxter Avenue, Louisville Highlands · March 2027, date to confirm
Louisville's parade, hosted by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, steps off at 3 PM at Broadway and Baxter Avenue and rolls through the Highlands to Bardstown Road.
Norfolk, Virginia · Granby Street, Ocean View, Norfolk · March 2027, date to confirm
Norfolk's Ocean View parade, operated by Norfolk Parade Inc., began in 1967 with members of the Knights of Columbus Father Kealey Council and marches down Granby Street.
Savannah, Georgia · Downtown Savannah · March 2027, date to confirm
Savannah's parade is organized by the Savannah St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee and is one of the largest St. Patrick's Day parades in the American South.
Run by Savannah St. Patrick's Day Parade Committee.
Boston, Massachusetts · South Boston, Boston · March 2027, date to confirm
The South Boston parade is organized by the Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston and doubles as the neighborhood's Evacuation Day commemoration.
Run by Allied War Veterans Council of South Boston.
Chicago, Illinois · Western Avenue, Beverly and Morgan Park, Chicago · March 2027, date to confirm
The South Side Irish Parade began in 1979 with a small group of neighborhood families and now marches down Western Avenue through Beverly and Morgan Park.
Run by South Side Irish St. Patrick's Day Parade and Heritage Foundation.
Tampa, Florida · Downtown Tampa · March 2027, date to confirm
Tampa's parade, organized by the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment Rough Riders, now rolls through downtown Tampa as part of the River O'Green festival after years in Ybor City.
Run by 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment - Rough Riders, Inc..
Every state seeded with its best-known Irish pubs: 604 listed so far across 50 states, each one checked against the pub's own website, and more added state by state. The full database is searchable by name, city or state: browse the pubs database. Listing is free, and a pub's own people can claim its listing.
The Irish abroad
The listings above are where Irish America gathers now. Further down this page are the numbers behind them: how many left, how many claim the ancestry today, and how the country they built came to be. See the numbers.
30.5 million people in the United States claimed Irish ancestry in 2023 (US Census Bureau, ACS 2023).
8,175,124 people were counted on the island of Ireland in 1841, the highest figure any Irish census has recorded (Census of Ireland 1841, CSO historical series).
The Irish abroad, in numbers
Start with the scale of it. Ireland is one of the few countries whose people abroad outnumber the people at home several times over, and every figure here is one a census office publishes itself.
8,175,124: people counted on the island of Ireland in 1841, the highest figure any Irish census has recorded (Census of Ireland 1841, CSO historical series).
1 to 2 million emigrated between 1845 and 1852, the Famine years, when about a million people died; published estimates differ, so the range stands (CSO historical series).
30.5 million people in the United States claimed Irish ancestry in 2023, 9.1% of the country and nearly six times the population of the Republic of Ireland, 5,149,139 at Census 2022 (US Census Bureau, ACS 2023; CSO Census 2022).
117,219 people living in the United States in 2023 were born in Ireland (US Census Bureau, ACS 2023).
523,014 people born on the island of Ireland were living in England and Wales in 2021: 324,670 born in the Republic and 198,344 in Northern Ireland (Office for National Statistics, Census 2021).
4,413,115 Canadians gave Irish as an ethnic or cultural origin in 2021 (Statistics Canada, Census 2021).
2,410,833 Australians gave Irish as an ancestry in 2021, 9.5% of the country; 80,927 of them were born in Ireland (Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2021).
Two different measures run through these numbers and they are not interchangeable. Born in Ireland counts the emigrants themselves; ancestry counts their children, grandchildren and everyone who came after.
How Irish America was made
The leaving
People left Ireland in every century, but the Famine made leaving the defining fact of Irish life. Between 1845 and 1852 the potato crop failed again and again. About a million people died, and somewhere between one and two million emigrated, many on ships so crowded and disease-ridden that passengers called them coffin ships. On the Canadian route alone, 98,649 people arrived at the Port of Québec in 1847; 5,282 had died on the crossing, and up to 5,424 were buried that year on Grosse Île, the quarantine island in the St Lawrence (Parks Canada).
It did not stop when the Famine ended. For the rest of the century and well into the next the pattern held: one child stayed on the farm or in the shop, and the others took the boat. The island's population fell for generations, and the Republic's population passed five million again only at Census 2022, the first time since 1851.
The arriving
Most landed in a handful of ports: New York above all, then Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Québec. From 1855, New York arrivals were processed at Castle Garden at the foot of Manhattan. From 1892 the federal station on Ellis Island took over, and it stayed open until 1954. What decided a family's first years was usually who was waiting: a brother, a cousin, someone from the same townland who had come earlier and could say where the work and the rooms were.
They arrived poor, into cities that did not always want them. The 1850s saw the Know-Nothing movement campaign against Irish Catholic immigrants, and plenty of doors stayed closed. The answer the Irish built was each other: the parish, the county society, the publican who cashed cheques and carried news home, and the political machine that learned to count Irish votes.
The building
The work was heavy and it was everywhere. Irish navvies dug the Erie Canal and much of the canal network that followed it, laid railroad track across the continent and mined coal from Pennsylvania to Butte, Montana. Irish women went into domestic service in such numbers that Bridget became the generic American name for a maid. A generation on, the Irish were filling the police and fire departments of New York, Boston and Chicago, and raising the parish churches, schools and hospitals that still carry Irish saints' names.
The line runs from the docks to the White House in just over a century. John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960, was the great-grandson of a man who left Co. Wexford in the Famine years. What the festivals and centres on this page keep is the other half of that story: not the leaving, but what was carried.
Looking for your own people?
The festivals and memorials above are the public story. Yours starts with a name. Search a surname and see where in Ireland it comes from: the surname map holds 795 Irish surnames from the 1890 registers, each with its Irish form, its meaning and the counties it was rooted in. Or follow the step-by-step roots pathway through Ireland's free records.
Planning a trip to Ireland?
We are gathering interest in a trip-planning service while we build it. Tell us the kind of trip you have in mind, the places on your list and any surnames you want to follow: tell us about your trip. We read every submission, and where a trusted partner fits your trip better than we can today, we may pass your enquiry on so they can help.
Know an event or place we are missing?
Anyone can suggest a festival, a cultural centre, a heritage place or an online event for this section: submit an event or place. Every suggestion is checked against its official website before it appears.
