US | St. Patrick's Day On St. Patrick's Day, a Look at America's Irish Stats Nearly 1 in 10 Americans claim Irish heritage By John Johnson Posted Mar 17, 2024 7:54 AM CDT Copied The Chicago River is dyed green for St. Patrick's Day celebrations Saturday. (Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times via AP) Sunday is St. Patrick's Day, and USA Today and Fox Business glean some Irish stats from the US Census in commemoration: Ancestry: About 30.7 million Americans claimed Irish heritage in 2022, or roughly 9.2% of the nation. Immigrants: About 112,000 of America's foreign-born residents are from Ireland, less than 1% of the nation's foreign-born population. States: The states with the highest rates of residents with Irish heritage are New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Rhode Island. In New Hampshire, in particular, the rate is 19.2%. But in terms of raw numbers, California leads with the way with 2.19 million Irish residents, followed by New York (2.03 million), Pennsylvania (1.89 million), Florida (1.83 million), and Texas (1.73 million). A county: The US county with the largest number of Irish people is Cook County in Illinois, with 419,000. This helps explain why the Chicago River is dyed green every year. Read These Next Giuliani injured in high-speed highway crash. Iran's leaders ditched their phones. Their bodyguards didn't. A Stone Age settlement swallowed by the sea has been rediscovered. Gordon Ramsay has advice for fans after recent medical procedure. Report an error