An American whose Irish ancestor(s) had the balls and sense to leave a impoverished, theocratic, and otherwise rainy shithole of a country unlike the the descendants of the pussies who stayed. (see Irish)

What everybody in America becomes once a year on March 17th.

A person that was born in America, but has ancestors from Ireland. They might actually have some fairly close family in Ireland. They are very proud of their heritage and have good reason to be.

Much like African-American or Asian-American, Irish-Americans are Americans who are of Irish heritage.

The second largest group in america, after the germans. Presidents Reagan and Kennedy were Irish and Bill Clinton was half-irish. Tougher than nails, they are regarded as great fighters and even greater writers. (Think Joyce, Yeats, Doyle, etc.) Once looked down upon (by the boring ass wasps..) they rose up through the ranks of American society and are now one of the most popular and successful groups in the country.

A person born in America that is of Irish descent. Despite what others seem to think, an Irish-American person may have not been to Ireland, but this does not deny the existence of Irish in their blood. Millions of Irish immigrants fled to America even until the 1930's and settled thus creating families and spreading their blood lines. If ones' great grandparents or such came from Ireland, does that Irish blood not carry on to them even though they happened to born in America? Someone could easily have Irish parents and be born in Russia, or anywhere for that matter, but they are are still Irish no matter what country they happen enter the world into.

1)Americans whose distant ancestors came from Ireland. Many contries built by immigration use hyphens to denote cultural ties, such as Canada, US, England and Australia. Mainly American, they nonetheless retain the physical and cultural characteristics of Ireland (dark or red hair, pale and thin) and are identified as Irish by the general population and sometimes suffer discrimination due to these physical traits.

2)Americans whose parents are Irish

3)Americans born in the US but raised in Ireland, see Frank McCourt,writer; Aidan Quinn,actor ; Eamon DeValera, patriot and first president of Ireland

4)The people who raised cash and weapons so that the Irish war of Independence could be fought. Without Irish American support there would be no Republic of Ireland

An American who clings to a false Irish hyphenated identity in an effort to dilute his/her annoying, ignorant American one. They are known as 'Plastic Paddies'. They have never set foot on Irish soil, don't know any Irish people and call Irish (i.e. Gaeilge) 'Gaelic' e.g. ''OMG speak some gaelic!''. They believe they are Irish because their grandfather's grandmother lived next to a woman whose postman was from Dublin. Incidentally, Dublin is the only Irish city they're aware of, unless they're one of the elite few who know of ''Galloway'' (i.e. Galway, pronounced Gawl-way) or Cob - H (i.e. Cobh, pronounced cove). A real Irish person is born in Ireland and grows up there and would never compromise their identity by adding 'American' onto the latter end of their title of nationality (even if s/he moved to the U.S. and lived there indefinitely). Unless you have an Irish passport, don't call yourself Irish...even if your fifth cousin's brother-in-law's dog lived in Kerry!