3-15-2025 4:06am

Irish Heritage That

Jeff Barto Editor

The surprising Irish origins of Baltimore, Maryland

Did you know there’s a Baltimore in Co. Cork, too?

Baltimore is the largest independent city in the US and the biggest city in Maryland. It's home to nearly 200 neighborhoods, esteemed colleges and universities, and even features in pop culture classics "The Wire" and "Hairspray."

But did you know Baltimore has extensive Irish roots?

There are two theories as to how Baltimore, Maryland, which was founded in 1729, got its name – both with Irish links.

The first, and more probable, is that it was named for the second Lord Baltimore of the Irish House of Lords, Cecil Calvert, the initial proprietor of Colonial Maryland. Baron Baltimore was a Peerage of Ireland title, and Baltimore Manor was the name of the estate in Co. Longford where the Calvert family lived. The name Baltimore is an Anglicization of the Irish Baile an Tí Mhóir, which means "town of the big house."

The second theory is that it was named after the Irish town of Baltimore in west Co Cork. A reporter for the Baltimore Sun visited Baltimore, Cork in 1982 and found a few similarities between the fishing village of 254 residents at the time and the industrial American port city of 786,000, including harbor views and delicious oysters.

Baltimore, Maryland has an important place in the history of Irish America. As a 2007 article in IrishCentral’s sister publication Irish America magazine explained, in the 1600s, Maryland was something of a safe haven for Irish Catholics looking to flee persecution.

“Maryland had a long tradition of religious tolerance, which was forged by the Catholic Calvert family. It was Sir George Calvert who, in 1635, had successfully petitioned King Charles I to establish a colony called the Province of Maryland where Catholics could live freely.”

The Irish Catholic Carroll family played a huge role in settling present-day Maryland. Charles Carroll was the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, and his relative John Carroll was selected as the first Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore.

Irish Protestants also set out for Baltimore, with a small group of Scots-Irish families forming Baltimore’s first Presbyterian Church in 1761.

During Ireland’s Great Hunger, Baltimore became a top destination for Irish emigrants, with close to 70,000 arriving in the city in the 1850s and 60s.

The Irish would become an integral part of Baltimore’s social fabric, and there are many holdovers from this today – from pubs and restaurants such as Tir Na Nog, the James Joyce and Slainte, to the annual Maryland Irish Festival, to the Irish Railroad Workers Museum, which “celebrates the history of the immense Irish presence in Southwest Baltimore City in the late 1840s” who worked on the B&O Railroad.

In 1880, the Irish made up a large portion of the foreign-born population of Baltimore at 24.6% of all foreign born residents. 16.9% (56,354) of Baltimore was foreign born, 13,863 of them Irish.[1]

In 1920, 10,240 foreign-born White people in Baltimore spoke an English or Celtic language.[2]

In 1940, 2,159 immigrants from Ireland lived in Baltimore. These immigrants comprised 3.5% of the city's foreign-born white population.[3] In total, 4,077 people of Irish birth or descent lived in the city, comprising 4.6% of the foreign-stock white population.[4]

In the 1940 United States Census, Irish-Americans comprised 22% of the foreign-born population in Highlandtown. In Hamden, Baltimore's tract 13–5, 7% of foreign-born residents were Irish-American.[5]

The Irish-American community in the Baltimore metropolitan area numbered 341,683 as of 2000, making up 13.4% of the area's population. This made them the second largest European ethnic group in the Baltimore area after the Germans. In the same year, 32,755 people in the Baltimore metropolitan area were of Scottish-Irish descent, comprising 1.3% of the metropolitan area's population.[6] In the same year Baltimore city's Irish-American population was 39,045, 6% of the city's population. In the same year, 3,274 people in Baltimore were of Scottish-Irish descent, comprising 0.5% of the city's population.[7]

In 2011, immigrants from Ireland were the sixty-sixth largest foreign-born population in Baltimore.[8]

In 2013, an estimated 37,359 Irish-Americans resided in Baltimore city, 6% of the population.[9]