The Irish diaspora
 

St. Patrick's Day tomorrow. Does the "Irish" community exist outside of a few pockets in the diaspora nowadays?

In the US, there is no real Irish community. It's all Irish-American, meaning Americanized Irish. It's like how Chinese food in the US is not like Chinese food in China. You can't really tell who is Irish unless you look at the last name.

Right, different from Ireland obviously. But to what extent does an Irish-American subculture exist at this point?

"Irish American" identity still Pretty strong in the Northeast and Midwest.

Most people, I think, celebrated St. Patty's day over the weekend. Hopefully that was the last big hurrah for most in terms of going out in big groups and getting drunk, at least until this whole situation starts to pick up again.

I wouldn't say this is totally accurate for my neck of the woods. Of course there are plenty of Plastic Paddies out there, plenty of Celtic armband tats. But as recently as the last time the Irish economy was in trouble (2010-2013), over 20,000 Irish moved to the US. And most of them moved to Massachusetts and New York. Most of them are in their 20s, and a surprisingly high number of them overstay their tourist or summer work visas; this became an "unexpected" side effect of Trump's early ICE round-ups.

I have first cousins born and raised in Ireland, and I was rarely the only person in class in this situation throughout my school life in suburban Boston when we did our family history presentations.

But they likely interspersed into the general population just like the British that live in the US. There is very little common culture to share. Maybe they still watch TV from Europe or something, but they are living in the same apartment buildings or same subdivisions as any American.

15% of Canadians identify as Irish-Canadian. This number jumps between 20-30% in Atlantic Canada. The most famous St. Patrick's Day parade is the one in Montreal. It's one of the oldest and largest in North America and has been held yearly without interruption since 1824. St Patrick's Day itself, however, has been celebrated in Montreal since as far back as 1759 by Irish soldiers in the Montreal Garrison following the British conquest of New France.




In Toronto, the Irish-Canadian community heavily influenced the city and remains fairly prominent. Although not Irish today, the Cabbagetown neighbourhood (I live 2 blocks away) was once the epicentre for the Irish community. Back then it was a very poor and the Irish migrants who lived there planted cabbage in front of their houses as a source of food. They even have their own Cabbagetown flag.

Again, somewhat. Speaking English natively makes everything much easier of course. But just because you speak English and look like a bunch of Irish-Americans doesn't mean you forget about your RLI team or GAA club. And you're only going to be able to watch these at pubs in places like Southie. Where can you buy Taytos or Lyons or Barry's? And not to overplay this, but you need a network when you don't have papers. An old but good BBC article which touches on just this point.

There's still an Irish (not Irish-American) concentration on the Bronx/Yonkers border. Katonah Avenue in Woodlawn (Bronx) and McLean Ave. in adjacent SE Yonkers are the main commercial streets. There are still immigration centers, Irish papers for sale, etc. Lots of construction workers with no papers are Irish, even today. Construction pays extremely well here.

Thirty years ago, however, there was an Irish (not Irish-American) concentration that extended southward, all the way to Fordham Rd. in the Bronx. Norwood was heavily Irish until maybe 15 years ago. Still a few remnants. Bainbridge Ave. in Norwood was very Irish until recently. Still a couple of old man bars.

There's also a decent-sized community in Woodside, Queens.

Of course, assimilated Irish-American communities are everywhere in the NE corridor between Philly and Boston.

Woodlawn is mentioned in the BBC article I quoted. The under-the-table construction job situation is similar in Mass. Especially during the summer when guys come over for tourism jobs on the Cape and discover they can get paid 4x as much building houses.

boston, Chicago, NYC, Savannah, some NOLA

seems to blend out as you go west though. Had a cousin move to SF and we thought he was an astronaut

Here in KC I see people flying Irish flags here and there.

Quebec is actually home to the only predominantly* French-speaking Irish diaspora in the world.

(*A significant of minority or Irish-descended Quebecers are still anglophones, but the majority are now native French speakers. Quite a few speak very little English at all.)

Their historical presence here is related to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjz8A5N055I

Though many Irish also integrated with francophones outside of that crisis. They were simply immigrants who cozied up more to the French Canadian Catholics more than to the local anglos (generally Protestants), in spite of the fact that almost all of the Irish spoke English as either a first or second language.

The house across the street from ours owing to family reconstitutions and compound surnames actually has three Irish surnames present in it. Every single person living there is a Québécois francophone however.

Not to be disrespectful but Irishness in Quebec is for the vast majority very much a "Plastic Paddy" thing. More about drinking Guinness, listening to the Cranberries (or maybe The Pogues) and raising a glass on St. Patrick's Day. Iconic Irish stuff like its literary greats or GAA football are largely unknown here even among the Irish-descended.

Though maybe I am being too dismissive? I guess that the Irish presence has clearly left an influence on Quebec folk and even popular music, for example.

I mean, what else can one make of this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxJwRJlS890

we have the "Chi-rish" here in the windy city.

who have WAY more to do with public urination and turning rivers green than anything involving ireland itself.

i myself am a significant, but not precisely known, percentage of Chi-rish.


http://s3.amazonaws.com/strange-carg...jpg?1392918433
source: http://www.strangecargo.com/chirish-crest

The Irish...

Yuk,

https://i.imgur.com/DZTXhmC.gif

Montreal - Nearing 200 years of uninterrupted st patricks parades.

Corona - "hold my beer"

everybody's an astronaut in SF.

can't ignore the flyover states. Butte, Montana has a significant Irish population. here's an older article about it in the Irish Times naming Butte the "Most Irish Town in America":

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/the-...erica-1.573655

:cheers:

"whats this about the irish"?

https://www.biography.com/.image/ar_...1909-1-402.jpg

Woodlawn, Bronx is an enclave for Irish expats/immigrants. Not Irish-Americans. I have Irish friends there who are carpenters... they make tons of money working construction in the city. My cousin's husband and his Irish buddies largely built the lobby of 1WTC.

edit: just saw Crawford's post