page_title: Irish military diaspora
section_title: United States of America
hierarchical_section_title: Irish military diaspora / United States of America
caption_attribution_description: Portrait of Commodore John Barry, US Navy, by V. Zveg, 1972, from the 1801 portrait by Gilbert Stuart. The two images previous posted on this page (shown below) are of the original Stuart Portrait. Notice the buttons. In Stuart's painting, they are dark, while in Zveg's they are metallic.
context_page_description: The Irish military diaspora refers to the many people of either Irish birth or extraction who have served in overseas military forces, regardless of rank, duration of service, or success.
  Many overseas military units were primarily made up of Irishmen and had the word 'Irish', an Irish place name or an Irish person in the unit's name. 'Irish' named military units took part in numerous conflicts throughout world history. The first military unit of this kind was in the Spanish Netherlands during the Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Dutch. A notable example is that of Owen Roe O'Neill.
context_section_description: Irish have been fighting in the United States and British North America  all the way back to the mid 1600s mostly in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. In the 1700s Irish surnames can be found on various colonial American records. Irish involvement only heightened with the American revolution and later in the 1800s when massive numbers of Irish came to the United States.
  Michael Corcoran, General in the Union Army
  Thomas Francis Meagher
  Commodore John Barry "Father of the American Navy"
  Myles Walter Keogh
  Edward Stack
  Richard Montgomery
  Philip Sheridan
  James Shields (Brig. Gen. USA) Planned defeat of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson at Kernstown in 1862
caption: Commodore John Barry by Gilbert Stuart
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