There are a lot of pretty convincing theories about male death rates and how they're tied to conflict, demonstrations of courage, and clear purpose. I'd never heard the Ireland result, but it doesn't shock me. Obviously some of this is gender-agnostic, like sense of community, but some of it doesn't seem to be; there's a reason that young, unemployed men are the largest risk factor for social instability.
Given all that, it's intriguing to see that what's going wrong in the American heartland is affecting women at least as strongly as men. A lot of the easy answers (unemployment, worsened employment, lack of education) are all things that have mostly changed to the detriment of men (they might be better or worse for women, but we care about recent change and that would imply declining results for men). So that drives me into suspicions that this isn't something we can handwave with "construction took a downturn" or "bad warehouse jobs" - there seems to be a broader anomie transcending those simple problems.