Irish Canadians
The first waves of Irish immigrants took place between 1763 and 1880. when ten thousand Irish immigrants arrived on the Island. From 1800 to 1850, "10,000 immigrants from every county in Ireland" had settled in Prince Edward Island and represented 25% of the Island population by 1850.
Scotch-Irish Americans
Scotch-Irish (or Scots-Irish) Americans are American descendants of Ulster Scots and Anglo-Irish Protestant Dissenters from various parts of Ireland, but usually from the province of Ulster, who migrated during the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 2017 American Community Survey, 5.39 million (1.7% of the population) reported Scottish ancestry, an additional 3 million (0.9% of the population) identified more specifically with Scotch-Irish ancestry, and many people who claim "American ancestry" may actually be of Scotch-Irish ancestry. The term "Scotch-Irish" is used primarily in the United States, with people in Great Britain or Ireland who are of a similar ancestry identifying as Ulster Scots people. Most of these emigres from Ireland had been recent settlers, or the descendants of settlers, from the Kingdom of England or the Kingdom of Scotland who had gone to the Kingdom of Ireland to seek economic opportunities and freedom from the control of the episcopal Church of England and the Scottish Episcopal Church. These included 200,000 Scottish Presbyterians who settled in Ireland between 1608 and 1697. Many English-born settlers of this period were also Presbyterians, although the denomination is today most strongly identified with Scotland. When King Charles I attempted to force these Presbyterians into the Church of England in the 1630s, many chose to re-emigrate to North America where religious liberty was greater. Later attempts to force the Church of England's control over dissident Protestants in Ireland were to lead to further waves of emigration to the trans-Atlantic colonies.