Corned beef and cabbage is a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dish. In 2009, roughly 26.1 billion pounds of beef and 2.3 billion pounds of cabbage were produced in the United States.
Irish soda bread gets its name and distinctive character from the use of baking soda rather than yeast as a leavening agent.
Lime green chrysanthemums are often requested for St. Patrick’s Day parades and celebrations.
Places to Spend St. Patrick’s Day
There are seven places in the United States named after the shamrock, the floral emblem of Ireland, including Mount Gay-Shamrock, WV; Shamrock, TX; Shamrock Lakes, IN; and Shamrock, OK.
Sixteen U.S. places share the name of Ireland’s capital, Dublin. With 44,541 residents, Dublin, CA, is the largest, followed by Dublin, OH, with 39,310.
Other towns with the luck of the Irish include Emerald Isle, North Carolina and Irishtown, Illinois.
Facts about Irish Americans
There are 34.7 million U.S. residents with Irish ancestry. This number is more than seven times the population of Ireland itself.
Irish is the nation’s second most frequently reported ancestry, ranking behind German.
Across the country, 11 percent of residents lay claim to Irish ancestry. That number more than doubles to 23 percent in the state of Massachusetts.
Irish is the most common ancestry in 54 U.S. counties, of which 44 are in the Northeast. Middlesex County in Massachusetts tops the list with 348,978 Irish Americans, followed by Norfolk County, MA, which has 203,285.
Irish ranks among the top five ancestries in every state except Hawaii and New Mexico. It is the leading ancestry group in Delaware, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
There are approximately 144,588 current U.S. residents who were born in Ireland.