Indiana's Green Roots

Hoosiers Can Claim Some Irish in Their Past

By Brenda Myers

While everyone claims to be Irish on St. Patrick's Day, the history of Indiana's Irish population is surprisingly slim when compared to other ethnicities in the state and to other similar Midwestern cities.

Irish families played a major role in the development of religion and politics in Indiana, yet at the height of migration to the state in 1870, when almost 29,000 Irish-born immigrants lived in Indiana, they comprised just 2 percent of the state's population of 1.68 million, according to the Indiana Historical Society.

The greatest influx of Irish immigration peaked in Indiana during the period 1860–1920, the period in time it was most evident as a distinctive ethnic group here, according to Peopling Indiana: The Ethnic Experience (Indiana Univ. Press, 1996). After that date, most Hoosier Irish history relates to those who were descendants of earlier immigrants. Still, urban Irish residents were among the builders of modern Indiana, according to the Indiana Historical Society, which houses more than a million documents on Indiana history, from early settlement to the present.

South Bend is noted for its Irish settlements and the founding of Notre Dame University, but for a number of earlier decades most Irish families could be found in southern Indiana along the Ohio River where they built churches and established communities, especially in the Madison area.

Although Irish Hoosiers were a socially and politically active group, they faced much prejudice in the latter half of the 19th century, both for their raucous past as well as their Catholic beliefs, according to the Indiana Historical Society.

Want to see more?

• Check out our Article Library.
• Romantic Indiana Getaways Satisfy the Heart and the Stomach
• Take a Ride on the Underground Railroad: Indiana's African-American Heritage
• So Green, So Close: Golfing in Indiana
• Talk about it!