Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
... the idea that an american of irish descent would identify as "protestant" is extremely foreign to me.
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These are the Scots-Irish. People from Northern Ireland. They are the "early arrivers" and settled primarily SW Pennsylvania, and gradually moved west and south.
Irish people identifying as Protestant, especially Presbyterian, is very common.
Once Irish Catholics started coming over a century later, the early arrivals made it clear that they were of "Scots-Irish" stock in order to differentiate themselves from the dirty, poor, union laborer, Catholic Irish of the time.
The Mellon Family are likely the most prominent Irish Protestant WASPs in American history.