[danielvf]

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%.

[dyauspitr]

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.

[MrAlex94]

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...