I've been trying to do some Google'ing research into hex sign designs and origins. This left me with some questions.

Question 1: what are the origins of the Irish hex sign? Did it appear in the 1800s as the result of cultural mixing? Was it created in the later 1900s purely for marketing? I kept running across a design listed as the "Irish hex sign" (always a shamrock between two birds/distlefinks, with the three tulips at the bottom, plus whatever else). I assumed this design existed because German and Irish immigrant descendants intermarried or something, but then I came across this little story and began wonder if it was purely fiction or not. The story paints the Irish hex sign's origins as being the result of fighting between the Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch. Is there any truth in that?

Question 2: since hex signs were "brought over" by the Pennsylvania Dutch... doesn't that mean they also existed in Europe in some form? Were they called something else there? Why is the hex sign known only as a Pennsylvania Dutch thing, and not just a Dutch thing in general?