Speaking of Irish and American, it was a band of virtually first-Irish immigrants to America in the 1630s, I believe, who called themselves "Native American" to distinguish themselves from later Irish arrivals - long, long before American indigenes thought to call themselves by that moniker.
As for tolerance, Doc, W.B. Yeats, a poet and playwright, was once asked how he chose Irish stage actors for his plays [Irish theater was effectively snubbed by Brits as being strictly low theater]. He replied [paraphrased]: "I go to a pub, put names of attendees in a hat and draw out the number of actors I need at random. All have sufficient pathos to be great actors."
