Irish America was at its high-water mark during the 1990s peace process, politically powerful at home and abroad. Today, as the United States marks its 250th anniversary, it still wields some power, but it is a shell of its former self.
With the anniversary of the signing of the US declaration of independence, positive references to Irish immigrants and their descendants abound, unlike other immigrant communities.
Irish Americans were not always celebrated in the US, but as they accumulated economic and political power, they became one of the most powerful ethnic lobbies in the US.
From this perch and on the back of often hard-won political power, they maintained strong relations with Ireland and ensured it had political access in Washington disproportionate to its size.
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Today, however, the relationship between Ireland and the US is under profound stress, from both internal changes within Irish America and external pressures from Donald Trump and his Maga gadflies.
In the 1980 census, when Americans could only choose one country of ancestry, 40.2 million Americans claimed Irish heritage. In the 2020 census, when the rules changed to let people claim more than one country of ancestry, 38.6 million did.
In the intervening years, the US population increased by more than 100 million. Today, most Irish Americans are third or fourth generation immigrants with limited ties to their homeland. New blood is largely absent, bar a trickle of new immigrants from Ireland.
Irish Americans are increasingly disparate. They are no longer concentrated in cities like Boston, New York, Philadelphia or Chicago but are spread out across the US. Even though it is not realised much in Ireland, if at all, more identify as Protestant than Catholic.
And even though Irish Americans built their political power through the Democratic Party, they are now as politically split as the rest of the country. There is no longer a discernible Irish voting bloc.
Their political and cultural organisations have also waned. Membership in the Ancient Order of Hibernians has declined precipitously, and bitter debates about whether to admit women have stoked division among those who remain.
The Congressional Friends of Ireland Caucus has one-third the members it had in the 1990s and now competes for members with the newly formed Friends of the United Kingdom Caucus.
In the 2024 election cycle Irish America’s only political action committee, the Irish American Democrats, made just $20,000 (€17,000) worth of contributions. By comparison, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee contributed $52 million. Money talks.
Given its weaknesses, it is nothing short of astonishing that Irish America re-emerged to flex its muscles in the wake of Brexit, angered over the British government’s action that could have led to a new hard border on the island of Ireland.
The United States had no clear policy on Brexit, but Irish Americans, still including those who were tempered in the fire three decades ago, recognised the risk it posed to the peace process.
A group of politically well-connected figures including two former congressmen, Bruce Morrison and Jim Walsh, formed the Ad-Hoc Committee to Protect the Good Friday Agreement to prevent a hard Border.
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The Ad Hoc committee lobbied congress to use the US-UK trade deal coveted by Brexiteers as leverage, tying the potential for a trade deal to the guarantee of an open border.
And it was not a one-off show of support. The Congressional Friends of Ireland and other Irish American groups kept pressure on the British government until the Windsor Agreement was signed in 2023.
If and when it happens, Irish Americans will be energised by a unity referendum in Ireland. Some will offer full-throated support for it while others will focus on ensuring fair play in the referendum and afterwards.
But even the prospect of Irish unity cannot transcend the demographic and other changes that undermine Irish American cohesion and potential for future collective action.
Though Ireland survived Trump’s first term largely unscathed, it faces a more belligerent Trump in the second. Since his return to office Trump has aired a litany of complaints about Ireland.
In March 2025 he claimed Ireland was “taking advantage” of the US because its lenient corporate tax structures had “lured” US pharmaceutical companies to it for decades.
In June 2026, Trump’s ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) suggested that Ireland’s neutrality policy meant it was getting “all the benefits” of Nato without paying for it, warning it was “inviting vulnerabilities”.
Ireland’s decision to describe Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide especially provokes ire, a point that too often does not register on the radar in discussions in Ireland on the subject.
Tensions have surfaced in recent St Patrick’s Day festivities in Washington when the Taoiseach traditionally goes to the White House to present the president with a bowl of shamrock.
It is an annual opportunity for face time with the US president that no other small country has. Usually it is described in glowing terms – a “love-fest,” a way to honour an “enduring friendship,” a “blaze of goodwill and backslapping”.
For two years in a row, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has deftly managed to avoid spectacle for an occasion that is now described by Washington insiders as “a minefield”. Again, this is not fully comprehended in Ireland.
But Sinn Féin, the SDLP and Alliance have boycotted the White House, skipping the whole week of events when Irish ties are celebrated in Washington. Such an action comes with a cost and it will be remembered.
Staying away during St Patrick’s week also means these parties have ceded space in the US to the Democratic Unionist Party, which is eager to cultivate American ties on the back of Scotch-Irish links. In Sinn Féin’s absence, the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly, the Deputy First Minister, has become the face of the Northern Ireland Executive for the occasion.
While Little-Pengelly was in Washington, Stormont’s Communities Minister Gordon Lyons travelled to Georgia to celebrate the role of Ulster-Scots migrants in the state’s formation in the late 1700s.
Months before, the DUP’s Edwin Poots, Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, attended a summit on “the important role of business in advancing God’s Kingdom” at the evangelical Liberty University. Ian Paisley jnr attended Trump’s inauguration.
So far, the DUP and other unionists have not perhaps, handled all of these engagements as deftly as they might, but Trump’s Maga are eager for these relationships, finding common cause with groups in Ireland.
Right-wing pundit Steve Bannon wants to create a new party in Ireland to combat “civilisational erasure”, while Maga politicians cheered on recent anti-immigration riots in Belfast, even if they revealed their ignorance of the basics of local details.
Department of homeland security director Markwayne Mullin, for example, told Fox and Friends the rioters, many of whom were loyalist paramilitaries, were “trying to take their country back ... all they want to be is Irish”.
[ As the US turns 250, we are at each other’s throatsOpens in new window ]
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio recently visited Belfast with another January 6th insurrectionist. Though Maga lieutenants misunderstand loyalism, they share the anti-immigrant feelings of the rioters.
Such actions towards the island of Ireland are new. In the past, Irish American interventions in the peace process and during Brexit were high-minded, bipartisan, and helpful. They were also carefully steered by Irish politicians.
Such steering is more difficult now. Nothing the political parties in Ireland or Northern Ireland do will alter the demographic changes bearing down on Irish America, but it must bid to shape the narrative by engaging. Staying at home achieves nothing.
Kimberly Cowell-Meyers is associate professor in the school of public affairs at American University
Carolyn A Gallaher is professor in the school of international service at American University
