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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 27.7 ms ] threadhttps://www.army.mil/article/283793/key_military_unit_the_44...
A Presidential Medal of Freedom has value as scrap metal.
Topic: “Too Many Medals?” U.S. Militaria Forum. https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/233...
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.