Here's a question to add to your St. Patrick's Day celebration: How Irish is Half Moon Bay?
There's a wide variation in Bay Area cities. Did you know that Petaluma is more Irish than Boston, a city famous for Irish immigrants? Petaluma's population is 18.5-percent Irish ancestry, compared to Boston's 15.8-percent, according to City-Data.com.
Danville and Mill Valley also can out-Irish Boston. Each city's population is 16.6 percent Irish ancestry.
A Bay Area city that might be expected to boast a large percentage of Irish, Dublin, is 12.0 percent.
As a local resident, you might be proud to know that Half Moon Bay surpasses the Ireland of the East Bay. With 13.5 percent of the population possessing Irish ancestry (a figure that matches San Rafael), Half Moon Bay is approximately one percentage point away from Livermore (14.3 percent), Napa (12.7 percent) and Concord (12.5 percent).
San Francisco, host of the West Coast's largest celebration of Irish heritage, the city's annual St. Patrick's Day Parade, has but 8.9 percent Irish-ancestry population, which is still ahead of the Bay Area's largest city, San Jose with 6.1 percent, and more than double the region's third-largest city, Oakland with 4.3 percent.
El Cerrito's population is 8.6 percent Irish, compared with Albany next door at 10.4 percent and Berkeley's 9.0 percent.
The list below shows the percentage of Irish-ancestry population for 21 Bay Area cities checked by Patch on City-Data.com on Friday, March 16. (The attached chart illustrates the same information.) If your town isn't listed, you can check it at City-Data.com – just enter the city and state and then search for the word "Irish."
Albany 10.4% Alameda 10.6% Berkeley 9.0% Concord 12.5% Cupertino 6.4% Danville 16.6% Dublin 12.0% El Cerrito 8.6% Half Moon Bay 13.5% Livermore 14.3% Mill Valley 16.6% Napa 12.7% Newark 7.5% Oakland 4.3% Palo Alto 9.6% Petaluma 18.5% Piedmont 11.7% Redwood City 10.4% San Francisco 8.9% San Jose 6.1% San Rafael 13.5%Got Patch? Sign up for our newsletter by clicking on the "Patch Newsletter" link on the top right of our homepage.
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