not sure what you mean about black irish. my father said that we were..or at least he was. there are many definitions of black irish, with more added daily. going back a ways i think it refers to those irish with black hair. probably some spanish genes, or maybe old turkish or african somewhere...who knows. it is an old term and newer definitions should be explained and identified as newer interpretations of an older classification. irish for a while were not white. neither were greeks, italians, mediterranean people. i think scandinavians probably mostly were. some were considered strong but dumb..no offense...one way they rose probably more quickly than the irish is that they had more skills probably. they were not as held down by a nutty church..no offense fellow catholics. they could freely marry to upper class or income people whereas irish catholics were not supposed to marry outside the faith, and upper income people at first did not tend to be irish. danish girls especially tended to marry up. some groups did not have the problems with alcohol that irish did...many complex interacting factors.