St. Patrick's Day bragging rights for these Ohio cities with the highest concentrations of Irish

CLEVELAND — Nearly 13% of Ohioans claim some Irish ancestry, always made known on St. Patrick's Day each year. At well above the 9.2% U.S. rate, it's no wonder the holiday is still a big deal here. Greater Cleveland, after all, is home to many of the most Irish places in Ohio. Fourteen Ohio cities have the distinction of having more than 20% of their population claiming Irish heritage, with eight of them clustered in the Cleveland area, according to the Census Bureau's 2019 American Community Survey. Bay Village tops the list with 28.6% of its population claiming Irish ancestry, followed by Fairview Park (27.6%) and Rocky River (25.1%). Not seeing the map, or is it not displaying correctly on your browser? Use this link instead. Despite having the name of Ireland's capital and hosting Dublin Irish Festival, Dublin, Ohio, only 13.4% of its residents claim Irish ancestry. By number, Ohio's biggest cities have the largest count of Irish. Columbus leads with 88,766 people, followed by Cleveland (32,137) and Cincinnati (30,005). Not seeing the map, or is it not displaying correctly on your browser? Use this link instead. The Ohio Irish population has decreased slightly since the survey taken from 2010 through 2014 when the state claimed some 1.6 million Irish representing 14% of Ohio's population. Columbus had the largest Irish population in Ohio at 100,177, followed by Cleveland (36,727) and Cincinnati (31,535). Like much of the United States, Ohio didn't see a spike in Irish immigration until the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. However, by 1870, 10% of Cleveland was Irish, according to Case Western Reserve University's Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. They were laborers who unloaded ships or worked in the steel mills opening along the Cuyahoga River and in Newburgh. The census estimates are derived from self-reporting of ancestry on surveys from 2015 through 2019. Respondents were allowed to identify more than one ancestry. Villages, places of less than 5,000, are not included in this listing by cleveland.com because of the high margins of error in the survey for smaller places. ©2022 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit cleveland.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.