60% of medal of honor recipients are Irish or Irish-American | Hacker News Reader

60% of medal of honor recipients are Irish or Irish-American

en.wikipedia.org

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%.

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.

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...

Yes, the GPT5 numbers are specifically about the Civil War so at 150 it was really close to the 148.

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.

Even if it is not disproportionate in the recipients, the numbers will still skew because they are not equal sized populations.

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?

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.

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.

Is that noise or data?

Noise, if it does not support the claim. Signal otherwise.

1 Medal of Honor for every 850 men.

https://www.army.mil/article/283793/key_military_unit_the_44...

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.

> 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.

Topic: “Too Many Medals?” U.S. Militaria Forum. https://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/233...

This has something to do with Irish whiskey.

On the Wikipedia page for Irish inventions, there’s nothing listed for 300 years after the invention of whiskey.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_Irish_inventions...

People were a little preoccupied in the following centuries:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_laws_(Ireland)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Cromwell

For 300 years, they were running around too fucking hammered to invent anything!

My understanding is that for 300 years, they were being too busy being hammered by the Brits.

As I recall, other things were happening in Ireland at the time that were perhaps more relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poynings%27_Law_(on_certificat...

I'm Irish-American. Why is this posted here?

Why not?

Because it has nothing to do with this forum. It's completely random.

“Surprising Wikipedia page” is 100% the ethos of HN

And what does it have to do with you being irish american?

From the guidelines: …anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

I wouldn’t have know this fact if not for this article.

We’re revealing all your secrets. The fact that the Irish control the world is going to be known by all!

So I know if we're sent off to war I should join your platoon

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.

A Medal of Honor is actually worth a lot on ebay

A Presidential Medal of Freedom has value as scrap metal.

Who sells a medal of honor on ebay? That’s disgusting.

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.

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