On self-identity, and being Irish in America

In response to an IrishCentral article, Why do Irish Americans still identify as Irish?
Why are American-born descendants of Diaspora Irish so tenacious about identifying with their homeland, even when their connections are generations distant?
Wendy C. Fries  @IrishCentral Oct 28, 2019

I wrote: I am thoroughly Irish, born in America—but raised within an Irish household, imbued with Irish culture, meaning I lived a dual life. Outside, especially at school, was America. But that ended the moment I came home. Ours was an Irish household from top to bottom. Jesus, Mary and Joseph in one corner, and John Fitzgerald and the Pope in another. I grew up in the oral tradition, raised by my grandmother from Bantry. I learned two histories—the Anglo-American version of history, and the Irish version of history. It took me decades to reconcile the two disparate threads. Us versus them. We were taught to hold tight onto our culture, not to succumb to American ways. Or Anglo ways. Because being Irish is all we had to sustain us. My grandmother faced discrimination in San Francisco, she refused to become an American citizen, even though my grandfather did. My grandparents were active members of the Gaelic League, and the Knights of the Red Branch, my grandfather collected guns for De Valera. After the uprising, Liam Mellows spent time at our house in Forest Knolls, as did De Valera. I was always terrified that my grandmother would get deported. When she went back to Ireland, after winning the Irish sweepstakes, in 1964, the Irish government met her at Shannon airport with a red carpet, because she had left before Ireland had become a free state. She also left America without a green card, without any passport, and was issued an Irish passport in Ireland— in order to get back to the United States. I remember being terrified that they wouldn’t let her back into the US, that I’d somehow be an orphan if that happened.