Jean, I have wondered at times too how much of the German influence stayed with the Irish Palatine group... In the introduction of Hank Jones book, "The Palatine Families of Ireland" he says on page ix: "While keeping a very separate identity at first, gradually certain characteristics and traits of these emigrant Germans began to adapt and change due to contact with their Irish neighbors, compromises necessary for survival in a strange land, education, and just the simple passage of time. Arthur Young in his 1776 Tour of Ireland noted, "For sometime (after their settlement) they fed upon sour crout, but by degrees left it off, and took to potatoes..." That statement really may tell a larger story. In all the Palatine townlands, German was the regular language of communication until ca. 1760, whereupon, due to their schooling and interaction with their neighbors, bilingualism began to take hold; by the end of the 19th. century, no trace of any German dialect in County Limerick was to be found. As to religion, the vibrant Protestantism that the Lutheran and Reformed emigrants brought with them to Ireland was eventually channelled by many families into a robust Methodism; as intermarriages between Irish Plalatines and native Irish began to occur in the third gereration, some of the Germans joined the Anglican church and other the Catholic religion. By the fourth generation, many cultural elements of their German background had been assimilated with those of their Irish neighbors; only the manner in which they worked the land (in commonage with grazing rights and arable land rotating annually) seems to have been leftover from their Palatine heritage. However, their personal character has been observed to still be quite distinctive: honest, disciplined, frugal, hard-working, and yes - often showing the intestinal fortitude necessarey to dare to "take a risk," as did their emigrant ancestors of the first generation in Ireland who left Germany in 1709" I have noticed how the Palatines stuck together when they came to America and married among themselves...They were a pretty tightly knit group... Carole