just curious

the obvious reason is that Irish & Italians tend to be Catholic, but it would be interesting to know if there are other reasons. i also wonder if Hispanic intermarriages with Irish & Italian are more common than other kinds of intermarriage, because of shared religion.

Yes the Irish-Italian intermarrage w/ Hispanics wuld be interesting to learn about too!

I'll bet you live in the North East, right?

I've seen that a lot. Mostly Italian men with Irish woman.

I remember a scene in the Sopranos where Dr. Melfi said something about worshipping the freckle.

I think an Italian man likes the challenge of an Irish woman. Back in the 70's & 80'sa the Irish girls were more likely, if not to wait until the marriage bed, at least they waited until they had their hooks in pretty deep.

Why do Irish woman go for Italian men? What's not to like?

Funny - My husbands doctor is from Milan. I knew he was married, and assumed he married in Italy.
I learned his wife grew up here, last name? O'hara.

Well, immigration to similar and nearby neighborhoods in the United States (not sure about italian immigration into Canada) at around the same time in history..

I'm not sure of the timing of various immigration waves, except the post famine wave of irish in the mid eighteen hundreds; I am presuming the italians followed the irish in time, possibly by a lot of time.

I am Irish-Italian mix. I wonder if also that many of these groups originally settled near each other. Lots of Irish and Italians in the Boston area for example.

Funny Chai - my family is mostly Irish men with Italian women.

Also, by the way my Irish-Italian brother married a Hispanic woman. Although neither really practices their religion. Also funny to note, is that I remain Christian, but no longer consider myself Catholic.

In addition to the people of Hispanic origin it would be interesting to learn more about (the stats) of mixed Irish-Italian intermarriage with the African-American, Asian and Native American populations.

THE UNITED STATES IS BY FAR THE MOST ETHNICALLY DIVERSE NATIONS IN THE WORLD (IT'S WAY UP THERE ON THE LIST ANYWAY) AND THAT'S ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT LIVING IN THIS COUNTRY.

As far as celebrities go, there are quite a lot of Irish-Italians in the acting industry....one of my favorite actors (who actually happens to be 3/4 Irish and just 1/4 Italian although he's commonly regarded by the media and general public as an Italian-American, given his surname)....Robert DeNiro, whose paternal grandfather was Italian and learned how to speak the language from him, as showed in 'The Godfather: Part II' one of my favorite movies of all time!