Contemporary Catholic and Protestant Irish America: social identities, forgiveness, and attitudes toward The Troubles

Eire-Ireland:Journal of Irish Studies, Spring-Summer, 2002 by Micheal D. Roe

II

Irish heritage

Over 75 percent of Irish Americans in this study evaluated their Irish heritage as moderately to very important. They participated in a great variety of activities related to their heritage, including reading, music, dance, Irish language, St. Patrick's Day, Irish-American community organizations, travel, education/study/research, genealogy, and general cultural events. An important distinction emerged between those Irish Americans raised Catholic and those raised Protestant. The Catholic participants rated their Irish heritage significantly more important than did the Protestant participants and, consonant with this difference, these Catholics participated in significantly more activities related to their Irish heritage than did the Protestants.

Emigration and continuing contact with Ireland/Northern Ireland

Over one-half of the Irish Americans traced an emigration experience from a great-grandparent, grandparent, or parent on their mother's and/or father's side of the family. Ten were first-generation emigrants, evenly split between Catholics and Protestants. Of those who knew where their Irish ancestors had originated, twenty-four of the thirty-two counties in Ireland and Northern Ireland were named. A substantially higher proportion of Catholic than Protestant participants experienced family emigrations from Ireland within the previous three generations, and among all Irish Americans, those with more recent emigrations tended to rate their Irish heritage as more important. About one-third of Protestant participants, but less than 10 percent of Catholic participants, stated that they did not know their ancestors' motivations for emigration. For both groups, the most common motivations were "improved economic opportunities" or "to better one's life"; indeed, 78 percent of Catholics and 36 percent of Protestants so responded. Escaping the potato famine was explicitly identified by 29 percent of Catholics and 8 percent of Protestants. Other, less frequent, responses included escaping religious persecution, escaping political violence or political instability, schooling, and so on.

In terms of continuing contact with Ireland or Northern Ireland, 36 percent of the Protestants and 74 percent of the Catholics had visited the North or South, with the range from one to forty times. Thirty-three percent of the Protestants and 53 percent of the Catholics received visitors from Ireland or Northern Ireland, 42 percent of the Protestants and 51 percent of the Catholics received mail from Ireland or Northern Ireland, and 25 percent of the Protestants and 35 percent of the Catholics regularly spoke by phone with persons from Ireland or Northern Ireland.

Little difference emerged between Catholics and Protestants on sources of information about Ireland. Clearly, U.S. newspapers, news magazines, and television news provided the primary sources of current information for these Irish Americans. Seventy-eight percent overall identified these as primary or secondary sources. For historical information, over 50 percent turned to family stories or history and political science books on Ireland or Northern Ireland as their primary sources. About one-third considered televised documentaries and movies as their next source of historical information.