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 · 26m ago
Even if it is not disproportionate in the recipients, the numbers will still skew because they are not equal sized populations.
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.
gregwebs · 34m ago
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.
lwo32k · 1h ago
This has something to do with Irish whiskey.
analognoise · 1h ago
On the Wikipedia page for Irish inventions, there’s nothing listed for 300 years after the invention of whiskey.
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.
burnt-resistor · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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.
throwaway1004 · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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 · 52m ago
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?
jeffbee · 1h ago
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 · 1h ago
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.
jacob_a_dev · 51m ago
Some cultures priotitize strength, fighting, honor, etc, while others prioritize different things.
morninglight · 1h ago
A Medal of Honor is actually worth a lot on ebay
A Presidential Medal of Freedom has value as scrap metal.
oh_my_goodness · 1h ago
I'm Irish-American. Why is this posted here?
bombcar · 55m ago
We’re revealing all your secrets. The fact that the Irish control the world is going to be known by all!
jghn · 1h ago
Why not?
oh_my_goodness · 1h ago
Because it has nothing to do with this forum. It's completely random.
lelandfe · 1h ago
“Surprising Wikipedia page” is 100% the ethos of HN
isatty · 1h ago
From the guidelines: …anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
I wouldn’t have know this fact if not for this article.
rat9988 · 1h ago
And what does it have to do with you being irish american?
https://www.army.mil/article/283793/key_military_unit_the_44...
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
Also, some aspects of the stereotype are true: we're violent as fuck, but perhaps that's true of all h. sapiens sapiens.
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.
A Presidential Medal of Freedom has value as scrap metal.
I wouldn’t have know this fact if not for this article.