As others have pointed out, this is primarily due to the American Civil War when the Medal of Honors was given out much more freely than today.
Here's the breakdown on more recent conflicts:
WWII, 625 total recipients, 13 Irish, 2.1%.
In the Korean War, there were 152 Medal of Honors, 3 given to Irish, or 1.9%.
In the Vietnam War, there were 271 Medal of Honors, 13 given to Irish, or 4.8%.
There were 36 Medal of Honor medals given out in the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. Of these, 3 are marked as Irish on that page, or 10.7%.
dyauspitr
Well don’t leave me hanging, what are the numbers for the civil war?
Edit: according to gpt5 1522 were given out with roughly 10% or 150 were given to the Irish.
MrAlex94
That figure from GPT-5 seems to be slightly off, according to the Irish Times:
“At least 258 Irish-born soldiers have won the Medal of Honor since its inception. Of those, 148 won them during the civil war – 14 in one day when the Union Navy raided the Confederate port of Mobile, Alabama, in 1864.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20250504103715/https://www.irish...
dyauspitr
Yes, the GPT5 numbers are specifically about the Civil War so at 150 it was really close to the 148.
CodingJeebus
Historically, the infantry ranks in the US military tend to come from the working class, not the wealthy. If MOH recipients disproportionately come more from forward deployed troops than the officer commissioned class, it makes sense that there’s a larger contingent of recipients who are immigrants or come from immigrant families.
rileymat2
Even if it is not disproportionate in the recipients, the numbers will still skew because they are not equal sized populations.
throwaway1004
Apologies for repeating myself but this directly addresses a question I posed in a sub-comment: of the total population, at the time, what proportion were considered working class?
The reason being, class distinction would only count if non-working classes were very statistically significant. Having never examined this before, I'm having a hard time getting solid information, and it appears superfically that the class distinctions of today may not quite apply.
I'm operating under the hypothesis that the vast majority of the population would have been considered "working class", probably with a variety of sub-strata within (think hobo who occassionaly works vs. prosperous sustenance farm who's a pillar of the community).
Was there an excess of places in officer school for middle class+, or did they have to compete for their place? If they couldn't break in, was it socially acceptable to choose not to fight with the troops?
potato3732842
They gave the MoH out like candy in the 1860s during which time units were sourced from a common location. That inject a A LOT of noise into the statistics.
antonymoose
Unfortunately I do not have the source to back it up, but I recall a Jocko or Jocko-adjacent podcast discussing changes in medals of valor at or just after WWII, shifting away from “charged a machine gun” acts of valor to “saved his team’s life” style events, not just for the MOH but for all prestigious medals.
xorbax
Is that noise or data?
pw6hv
Noise, if it does not support the claim. Signal otherwise.
The book Born Fighting by Jim Webb explains the historical and cultural background of the Scotch Irish including how they value bravery and have been ready to fight for their freedom and beliefs.
jt2190
> I remember meeting a WWII veteran of the Big Red One [U.S. First Infantry Division] who served in North Africa, Sicily, Normandy, all the way through Germany and into Czechoslovakia – over three years of almost continuous combat and came out of the war with three ribbons on his chest to show for it – and he never did get the actual medals at all.
For 300 years, they were running around too fucking hammered to invent anything!
pavel_lishin
My understanding is that for 300 years, they were being too busy being hammered by the Brits.
kayodelycaon(dead)
[flagged]
bl0rg
Yes - only the Irish are brave.
jeffbee
It means that Irish immigration to the USA was massive around 1850 and the standards for the Medal of Honor in the Civil War were less than they have been afterward, due to the lack of other awards.
throwaway1004
A lower standard would apply across the board, not only to the Irish. For your comment to make sense, forces would have to be majority Irish to begin with.
Otherwise, Irish are vastly overpresented for selfless and superior bravery on the field of battle.
Macha
The proportion of Irish Americans among the American working class in the the era of the American civil war _was_ much larger than it is today.
throwaway1004
No doubt that is true but it doesn't seem to account for the discrepancy, at least not without acquiring more data.
Google's LLM is spitting out ~250K immigrant and first-generation Irish fighting in the Civil War, sitting roughly at 10% of the total.
That doesn't account for second-generation and older, so I would be interested to see what social mobility was like for those more-established Irish-Americans: were they languishing in the working class, or did they exit from the middle class to go fight in wars disproportionately?
edit: how significant is the class factor, anyway? Does that model really apply, and how many citizens would be considered middle or upper class; enough to make a large statistical impact?
Also we're not talking about the proportion of the entire nation that was Irish, we're discussing the fighting-age lower class population of the Union side only.
michaelt
Yeah, in the UK there have been 1,355 recipients of ‘Victoria Cross’ their highest medal.
You know how many there have been since WW2? Fifteen. Recipients who are alive today? Five.
So the demographics of recipients are more reflective of them Britain of a century ago than of modern Britain.
burnt-resistor
I don't know of any MOH recipients in my Irish-American family, but I lost 3 great uncles in WW2 and my grandfather was a paratrooper who survived the war but was wounded in combat (but didn't receive a purple heart) and also injured in a jump. Maybe there is/was an Irish cultural tendency to take the initiative.
Also, some aspects of the stereotype are true: we're violent as fuck, but perhaps that's true of all h. sapiens sapiens.
matwood
My great grandfather, also Irish-American, is buried in Epinal, France. He died fighting in the battle of the bulge. I wonder what part of the US population was Irish-Americans during WW2, and furthermore what percentage of lower incomes were made up by Irish-Americans. That could explain the over representation.
SoftTalker
Imagine immigrating to the USA from Ireland only to find yourself conscripted into the Civil War.
jacob_a_dev
Some cultures priotitize strength, fighting, honor, etc, while others prioritize different things.
stevenfoster(dead)
[flagged]
burnt-resistor
TIL: The Deserter's Stamp was a brand of nails shaped liked the letter "D" heated and applied to the hips of lesser punished (not shot or hung) deserters until 1871. https://www.harveyhistoryonline.com/?p=4549
Balinares
Honorable is honorable, one supposes.
oh_my_goodness
I'm Irish-American. Why is this posted here?
bombcar
We’re revealing all your secrets. The fact that the Irish control the world is going to be known by all!
guywithahat
So I know if we're sent off to war I should join your platoon
LarMachinarum
sure about that? maybe he'll be the very risk-inclined, hot-headed, reckless platoon sergeant who will have a higher chance of earning a medal but also a higher chance of getting you and most of the platoon killed.
jghn
Why not?
oh_my_goodness
Because it has nothing to do with this forum. It's completely random.
lelandfe
“Surprising Wikipedia page” is 100% the ethos of HN
rat9988
And what does it have to do with you being irish american?
isatty
From the guidelines: …anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
I wouldn’t have know this fact if not for this article.
morninglight
A Medal of Honor is actually worth a lot on ebay
A Presidential Medal of Freedom has value as scrap metal.
wl
I know you’re trying to make a quip, but the Medal of Honor is of little monetary value as they are illegal to buy or sell.
nodesocket
Who sells a medal of honor on ebay? That’s disgusting.
Here's the breakdown on more recent conflicts:
WWII, 625 total recipients, 13 Irish, 2.1%.
In the Korean War, there were 152 Medal of Honors, 3 given to Irish, or 1.9%.
In the Vietnam War, there were 271 Medal of Honors, 13 given to Irish, or 4.8%.
There were 36 Medal of Honor medals given out in the wars in Iraq and Afganistan. Of these, 3 are marked as Irish on that page, or 10.7%.
Edit: according to gpt5 1522 were given out with roughly 10% or 150 were given to the Irish.
The reason being, class distinction would only count if non-working classes were very statistically significant. Having never examined this before, I'm having a hard time getting solid information, and it appears superfically that the class distinctions of today may not quite apply.
I'm operating under the hypothesis that the vast majority of the population would have been considered "working class", probably with a variety of sub-strata within (think hobo who occassionaly works vs. prosperous sustenance farm who's a pillar of the community).
Was there an excess of places in officer school for middle class+, or did they have to compete for their place? If they couldn't break in, was it socially acceptable to choose not to fight with the troops?
https://www.army.mil/article/283793/key_military_unit_the_44...
Topic: “Too Many Medals?” U.S. Militaria Forum. https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/233...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Irish_inventions...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_laws_(Ireland)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell
edit: how significant is the class factor, anyway? Does that model really apply, and how many citizens would be considered middle or upper class; enough to make a large statistical impact?
You know how many there have been since WW2? Fifteen. Recipients who are alive today? Five.
So the demographics of recipients are more reflective of them Britain of a century ago than of modern Britain.
Also, some aspects of the stereotype are true: we're violent as fuck, but perhaps that's true of all h. sapiens sapiens.
I wouldn’t have know this fact if not for this article.
A Presidential Medal of Freedom has value as scrap metal.