“One of the problems that many have is the definition of Irish and the label of Catholic. Before the famine the Irish, self described, were Scots Irish and Protestant. “
That’s true to an extent, particularly concerning the use of the name Irish, but there were some Irish Catholics in the colonies. I have both Protestant Scots Irish ancestors and Catholic Irish ancestors who came to the colonies before the Revolution.
The Scots Irish had helped the English defeat the native Irish and had settled in Ulster. IIRC after being double crossed by the English many of them left Ulster for British North America. They were a mixture of Scots and northern English and were Presbyterian.
My Irish Catholic ancestors were gentry who owned estates somewhere near Cork but they had their property confiscated by Cromwell. I’m sure that the theft of their property prompted them to leave for America. This exodus wouldn’t be well remembered because it happened in the late 1600s and the numbers wouldn’t have been large. And at some point they might have become Protestants like my family line did.
I did some research and found that the Scots side of my family were originally English, Maxwell and that my sons Father in laws family were also English, Sandlin.
Both notorious Border Reviers.