Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?

Subject: RE: Balck Irish Jews???
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Oct 08 - 09:44 PM

I have just found some papers from my mother's belongings referring to our ancestary, black Irish Jews. This is the 1st time I had ever heard of this term and thought I would look it up. I can't find a link specifically to that term. Anyone have any ideas?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 04:18 PM

Well, we have left our blood all over the world fighting for the rights well, mainly the survival, of other cultures..some of which we surely do not understand..all maybe. We have painfully but progressively incorporated people from all sorts of other cultures..of course taking the land away from indigenous people here..with time and a cruel grindstone we have sort of made an uberculture of America..but not totally...

You sound just rude and abusive frankly so have a cheery day. mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 02:47 PM

What is this thread about? Why was the term "Black Irish" (which first appears in print in the 1880s) coined in the first place?
To explain away the presence of dark hair among the Irish, who I gather, aren't supposed to have dark hair?
Therefore, these Irish who don't conform to the preconceived image have to be the result of some "foreign" intrusion into the populace.
Consider for a moment that the original population was of a darker coloration and that the lighter-haired population is the result of a "Scandinavian Armada"?
As Drew Carey put it once "I know it's true - but I don't want it to be true!"
Síocháin, Heddwch, Peace.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 01:31 PM

"jingoistic ethnocentric with little knowledge about, or respect for, other cultures,"

If you believe most Americans are like this I think you are wrong and what you have created is a stereotype.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 08:21 AM

mg,
   I think Irish people are probably more knowledgeable about Americans (thanks to the pervasive influence of the American media) than Americans are about the Irish (thanks to the same media).
   If the American stereotype is a jingoistic ethnocentric with little knowledge about, or respect for, other cultures, is that far off the mark?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 08:25 PM

You know, stereotyping Americans is just as ugly as stereotyping Irish or any other group of people. mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 07:52 PM

I guess the Armada theory is just more sexy which is why people like to tell it and why it persists.. (its not as interesting to say the 'black Irish' are those with black hair, or possibly from the Basque connections.)

I had no idea it was debunked.

Regarding the Celts in Europe - In my birth country Czechoslovakia
prior to 600Ad it was mainly populated by the Boii celtic tribe
(hence the name Bohemia - home of the Boii)
IN my home town Tabor they found a bronze celtic boar kancik
in 1869.

Celts were found as far east as the western desert of China
(The Tocharians) I remember seeing a NOVA episode a few years ago
during the burial excavation they found Tartan cloth.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 06:57 PM

"Celtic" is about language, not about "race".

Isn't red hair in Ireland generally supposed to come from the Danes?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 09:49 AM

Hey mg,
"A fair number of redheads?..." If you consider 10% of the population a fair number, or maybe you were just noticing it more. I have sometimes imagined an American couple travelling through Ireland, spotting a redhead and almost crashing their car to get a photo of the individual (meanwhile ignoring the more typical brunet folks).
This entire discussion seems to come down to the fact that the Irish don't look "Irish enough" for Americans. Constantly being fed the red-haired stereotype they search for some rationale to explain away the folks who don't fit their preconceptions. The Armada bit gives them "something to hang their hat on" as they say in the legal profession.
Similarly, in a discussion of "faux Irish bars" the following:
"These places were designed for a very particular market, namely, Americans. Americans like things to be the way they want them to be. If they go to an Irish pub they want their childish and simple-minded perception of what an Irish pub is to go unchallenged. To seek out truths and realities about other cultures takes too much effort."
I guess this discussion will be around as long as some Irish have to endure the Spanish Armada myth.
The Barbados spin sounds highly improbable to me: again DNA analysis could prove or disprove.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 05:30 AM

In the British islands, being Celtic is to a large extent simply proclaiming being not-English. Hence a tendency to lump a mixed set of heritages under one umbrella title. On the Continent, this is perhaps a similar tendency but the differential here is "pre-Roman" rahter than "pre-Anglo-Saxon" - or are they all "pre-Teutonic" and the great Volkwanderung?

The ideas of Centic culture were largely built around the finds of the La Tene culture. Now it has been pointed out that the great cauldron actually shows scenes from Indian mythology, perhaps the Hindus are really Celts?

Joking aside, despite its myriad flaws on closer looks, the overall concept of a common trans-European Celtic culture still has much use, and considerable life in it. Providing it is understood as a convenient shorthand not a prescription.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 05:13 AM

Is being Celtic a bit like people in England in Roman times being in some senses "Roman"?

Stands back and awaits storm of something or other?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 04:58 AM

That has long been the academic, as opposed to romantic, opinion; it helped to explain inconsistencies between the linguistic and archaeological evidence and the historical orthodoxy. My point, though, is that the old orthodoxies, and the traditional 'explanations', are going to need a lot of revision in the light of new information.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 03:48 AM

I will dig out a book I read a few years ago and give detail but I think the general conclusion was that "The Celts" were not a straightforward "racial" group with a land and leadership but a culture based in trade carried through the river systems of Europe.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 03:07 AM

Gaelic and Basque are not related except in the sense that most human languages are related. Gaelic is a member of the Indo-European group, while Basque is not; it is generally considered by linguists to be a unique neolithic survival.

Recent reports of genetic links between people in the Basque country and people in Wales have frequently been misunderstood by subscribers to the relatively modern romantic notions of the 'pan Celticists' as indicating that the Basques are Celts. In fact, the reverse is indicated: that the Welsh, on the whole, are not, genetically speaking, 'Celts' at all, but descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of Western Europe who were here long before the historical Celts arrived.

Recent studies seem to suggest that the same is true of many of the people living in Ireland, Scotland and England today. The pre-Celts of the British Isles appear to have adopted Celtic languages and much of the culture without absorbing a particularly large genetic input. The Basques, perhaps for geographical reasons, retained their original language.

This has been fairly obvious to linguists for quite a long time, but it's only now that genetics seem to be confirming that we have been labouring under some pretty big historical misapprehensions for a good few centuries.

Interesting times.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: mg
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 11:41 PM

There are probably multiple definitions applied to what is a very interesting term. I was just talking to someone at the LDS church near me and she said a lot of Irish came in through the Carolinas..I knew New Orleans and of course Boston, Baltimore, Quebec, New York, New Brunswick..also ports up the Missippi. Also labor was in such demand in the midwest that farmers somehow met boats somewhere and carried immigrants off to the midwest...

Anyway, it is hardly an unheard of category. I heard it when I was probably 5, because my father told us that he was one, according to his definition...I think many people use it to mean the black curly hair..so the very distinction of being Irish (as he was) was further enhanced by being black Irish. They were very proud of it and rightly so..same as a redhead or blond or whatever should be proud...don't begrudge anyone their pride, especially if they have struggled mightily in dangerous or low-paying jobs, etc. etc. mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Rowan
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 10:48 PM

Interesting!
At one stage in the 1960s it was accepted that at least a third of the population in Australia had at least some Irish ancestry (I'm one of the ones that missed out, explaining my difficulty with Irish decoration of tunes) but I'd never heard the term "black Irish" until I visited South Carolina in 1991. The fact that I'd not heard it is no evidence that it wasn't used, of course, but I suspect I'd have heard it if it had had reasonable currency.

When I did hear the term, in SC, it was in the context of a discussion about the differences between slaves (we'd been to Charleston and seen the remnants of the slave marketplace there) and the indentured labourers from Ireland. The locals were telling me that a fit and healthy slave had much the same capital value as a D9 dozer and, while there was a lot of abuse of such people, it was in the owners' interests to maintain the value of their capital investment. There was no such "interest" in maintaining the health and fitness of indentured labourers, used (during the period being discussed) as the major labour force to drain the mosquito-infested swamps of the Carolinas.

The indentured labourers in these swamps were almost all Irish (according to my informants) and died in extraordinarily high numbers and the term "black Irish" took on a different meaning, not necessarily "accurate" in this thread, but still evocative.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: TheSnail
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 08:53 PM

michaelr

It's certainly been suggested that there was migration to Ireland from the Iberian peninsula.

I'm working my way through a rather clumsily written book about this at the moment - The Origins of the British, Stephen Oppenheimer. See here for more information. How well accepted this is by mainstream archaeologists or linguists, I don't know.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: michaelr
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 08:22 PM

Guest, cuaetoir: It's certainly been suggested that there was migration to Ireland from the Iberian peninsula. The Basque aspect is new to me. Is there any suggestion that the Basque and Gaelic languages might be related?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 07:10 PM

A fair number of redheads?...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuaiteoir
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:01 PM

We certainly have some testiness on this site. Yes it is nuts but take a look at St Patrick's Day cards and the image in the media. I don't see how you can miss it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 02:43 PM

I have never heard an American say that all Irish were red-headed. That is just plain nuts and insulting besides. Although I did come across a fair number in South Boston once. mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir - arís!
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 01:57 PM

I've been busy OK? Is no one on this thread aware of the DNA studies
over the past decade? The Y-chromosome studies all indicate that Ireland and Britain were colonized after the last Ice Age by folks from the Basque country. The "haplotype" is called R1b and except for Leinster is present in over 90% of Irish males in the other three provinces. Leinster is 72% possibly due to Anglo-Normans. Could that explain why almost half of Irish people are dark haired?
In my experience most Irish are bemused by all this Spanish Armada business and just let the Yanks spout their "knowledgeable ignorance" about the subject. (Probably wondering why the subject is even thought about.) In case some Irish people haven't noticed, according to Americans, everyone in Ireland is redheaded; and if they aren't something is fishy.
Over 90% of Irish people are fair skinned, although there are some a little darker in the Midlands (descended from Welsh-Norman stock?) Dark hair is not confined to the west coast but is found throughout the island.
The book "Ireland: Graveyard of the Spanish Armada" by Kilfeather chronicles the events and refutes the Armada survivors theory.
There are dark-haired Icelanders of Irish descent who pre-date the Armada. An anthropological study of Ireland was conducted by Harvard University (Hooton)in the 1950s so the info is there if someone is interested. The DNA evidence also contradicts Mr Quinn.
It was my impression that a troll is someone who justs wants to stir up things, not someone who actually contributes something.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Declan
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 03:39 AM

Just read through most of this thread.

As with the other Irish people who have contributed over the years, I was unaware of the term Black Irish until reading the threads on here.

Ireland has had various "invaders" over the years who have been assimilated into the native population and became "More Irish than the Irish themselves".

As with most other nationalities any talk of "racial purity" is simply dangerous nonsense. Film maker Bob Quinn made a film called "Atlantean" (in the '70s I think). In it he sought to question the consensus that the Irish are mostly of Celtic origin. There is little doubt that Gaelic is a celtic based language, but this is a cultural rather than a racial thing.

He cited sailors coming from Iberia, and further south (e.g. Morocco) as a possible source of the dark sallow skinned people to be found on the western seaboard. These were not from the Spanish Armada per se but part of trading links that would have existed between the areas. I'm not sure to what extent he would have felt he proved his thesis. He was mainly making the point that it was as plausible as the Celtic 'mythology' which mainly grew out of romantic notions in the late years of the 19th century. The term Atlantean was to refer to people who travelled to Ireland via the Atlantic rather than anything to do with Atlantis as far as I know.

Among his theories was that the Bodhran resembled closely a drum which was in use by the Berber people in North Africa. Certainlyh an import we could have done without ;~) Also in another of Bob Quinn's films "Poitin", when one of the characters turns on the radio some North African music comes out. Quinn put this in - mischievously I think, to see if anyone would notice.

The norse invaders (Danes/Vikings) were known as Dubh Ghaill (Dark foreigners) and Fionn Ghaill (Fair foreigners). These terms live on in various place names such as Fingal - North county Dublin and Baldoyle (Baile Dubh Ghaill) to the north east of Dublin. I heard someone assert on the radio recently that red hair was unknown in Ireland prior to the vikings, but I don't know whether they had any proof of this.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 06 Nov 07 - 01:37 AM

I have always heard (and used) the term "black Irish" to mean Ulster Protestants (as distinct from Catholics) in the settlement of the eastern seaboard of the US. As I understand it, the predominant entry point was Chesaspeake Bay and the route was into the Shenandoah and Great Virginia Valley and thence southwest, thus settling the piedmont areas of the south eastern states because tidewater lands were already settled. Does this make sense? Or is it another kind of "Armada" myth?

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 08:36 PM

Well almost everyone in the world has African ancestry..that is the starting point for most of us..I did my mother's mother's etc. line..thought it was the Cornish or Native American but turns out it was the Dutch..anyway, they originate in Africa...

Anyway, I am interested in the Black Irish. My father always said his family was...I swear some of his aunts look like Spanish princesses...and he had the Black Irish look...it has traditionally in US at least referred to black hair, usually curly...almost any Irish American I ever saw growing up had that look...square face, black hair...never new of any redheads etc. Of course we weren't a great Irish center...Conan O'Brien did a great piece on how Irishmen hoped to grow square faces, like Ted Kennedy..Sean Hannity has the look I would call Black Irish. Things I have read indicate it might be a very old strain of Irish..the Dingle Peninsula being a stronghold of Spanish influence etc...who knows. They exist. It is hardly an insult..it is a matter of great pride...

You know..I always thought growing up, and only being half Irish ... that it was something you knew was very important but should also be humble about..and be especially humble if you were Black Irish and of course descended from kings etc...as every one was of course. But you shouldn't brag about it because not everyone had these social advantages etc...of course not everyone else saw it that way...mg

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 01:48 PM

When a GUEST revives a thread that has been dormant for over a year muttering accusations of trolling, isn't that a bit reminiscent of the conversation between the pot and the kettle?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir
Date: 05 Nov 07 - 11:43 AM

It should be relatively easy to see if there is African ancestry by way of DNA testing. You are just trolling, a chara. I am wondering why you would suggest it in the first place. Not the idea so much as the intent behind the suggestion.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 08:07 PM

Forgot to say, the theory of Barbadosed is interesting. My mom had a lot of Scottish ancestry. Her brother's hair was so dark and tightly curled his nickname, in the 1930's in high school was "Nig." Nothing was ever said about it, except my dad teased mom about being Black Irish. Since then, I've found one of her ancestors was a big wig on Barbados. When he moved to the Carolinas he brought about 300 hundred slaves with him. I believe it is entirely feasible there was some mixing of the blood.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 08:04 PM

According to History Detectives on PBS, "rednecks" originally referred to the Scots who fled to Northern Ireland when their land was taken from them. They apparently wore red scarves in a show of solidarity. They were also called "hillbillys" because of their loyalty to King William, according to the same experts.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 07:59 PM

I heard a very interesting paper at an American Council of Irish Studies conference by a scholar who had traced the very early experience of Gaeltachta persons who were transported or kidnapped to work in the sugar plantations of Barbados. This occasionally included entire villages. Apparently this was sufficiently common that, in the west of Ireland, the term for such kidnapping was "to be 'Barbadozed.'" The Caribbean term "Redlegs" (meaning poor whites, similar to the "Rednecks" of the US South) comes from the presence of the descendents of the same people.

This scholar theorized that the origin of "Black Irish" (which I've commonly heard as a reference to persons in the west of Ireland with swarthy skin, dark curly hair, and/or dark eyes) might be in the offspring of mixed-race liaisons in Barbados who later returned to Ireland. She made a pretty convincing argument.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,JD
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 06:49 PM

My mom's mom, Charlcye Elrod, said she was Black Irish and bore a striking resemblance to a light Josephine Baker. She had black rizzy hair, high cheek bones, and a full lower lip. Sounds like a light Black Indian to me. It didn't dawn on me for years.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 06 Oct 05 - 04:29 PM

Because it's sexy. People don't like ordinary family trees.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir
Date: 06 Oct 05 - 12:49 PM

Does anyone have a theory as to why "The Armada Myth" is so popular among Americans? Is it simply a way to keep an erroneous stereotype alive? I would like to know what people in Ireland make of all this. Any takers?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 05 Oct 05 - 03:27 PM

That guest is full of it.

Martin is not a uniquely Spanish name at all. He was a very popular saint throughout all of Christendom (well, the western part of it) and I dare say many Irish bore the name well before the Armada.

The Armada did NOT primarily land in Galway Bay.

From Hardiman's History of Galway

"The year 1588 was rendered memorable for the destruction of the celebrated Spanish Armada. One of the ships which composed this ill-fated fleet was wrecked in the bay of Galway, and upwards of seventy of the crew perished. Several other vessels were lost along the coast; and such of the Spaniards as escaped the waves, were cruelly butchered by order of the lord deputy, Sir William Fitz-Williams, who, finding, or pretending to find, fault with the alleged lenity of Sir Richard Bingham, the president ot the province, commissioned Robert Fowle, deputy marshal, who dislodged these unfortunate men from their hiding-places, and in a summary manner executed about two hundred of them, which so terrified the remainder, that, though sick and half-famished, they chose sooner to trust to their shattered barks, and the mercy of the waves, than to their more merciless enemies, in consequence of which multitudes of them perished."

A typical galleon carried roughly 200-400 men (and mostly on the conservative side of the estimate), the one directly in the Bay lost 70 men there alone. We do not know how many more had already died from sickness or injuries. Presumably the survivors were massacred and the wealthy ransomed. Those along the coast fared even worse. How one could conclude the Armada had a significant effect on the ethnic makeup of Ireland, is beyond me.

Anne Miler could say she was Black Irish, but how that proves an Armada link, I fail to see.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Cuairteoir
Date: 05 Oct 05 - 01:07 PM

I have a feeling that I have read comments by GUEST (01 May 05 - 02:59 PM) on other sites with his opinions about this subject. He has a distinctive penchant for CAPITALIZATION and unproven assertions. To quote something I read recently "They don't get it because they don't want to get it". Perhaps Carlos Aradas (6 May 05) can straighten this hombre out since they are both Spanish. See www.bbs.irishroots.net and I'm sure you will able to spot him.
    For anyone who would like to find out the facts about this, you could find the book "Ireland, Graveyard of the Spanish Armada" by T.P. Kilfeather. For the academically minded, you could check out
"The Physical Anthropology of Ireland" by Earnest A. Hooton, an anthropology study, in which he actually goes "in search of" the legendary Black Irish to no avail. As someone else in this thread commented this discussion is not going to go away soon. Slan agus Beannacht!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 07:30 AM

Howard was a better historian than is evident through his stories, which frankly are a bizzare, though entertaining, mish-mash.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Hopfolk
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 07:13 AM

Yeah, Howard used fragments of tales from all around the ancient middle-east and mediterranean to compose the Kull and Conan stories.

CamoJohn.

I have heard the Cymric reference, though I believe it's supposed to be more geographical than anthropomorphic.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 03:53 AM

Howard definitely ment the Cimmerians around the Black Sea area, related to the Scythians, Sarmatians, all the Iranian, rather than Turkic, nomads.
Frankly, there's as much etymological relation between Cimmeria and Cymry as Russia and Prussia.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 09:55 PM

No evidence of that. There were two lots of "Cimmerians"; one in what is now the Crimea, the other in what is now Italy. Any connection with what is now Wales appears to be imaginary.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 08:54 PM

Conan from Atlantis? Conan is a Cimerrian; Cimerria equals Cymry; thus, Conan is Welsh.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 04:01 PM

This was as far north as most had been in their lives. The natives as strange and barbarous as any of those encountered by the fictional Amadis de Gaul. Also bear in mind that the Armada survivors might have been murdered for no more than their shoes.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Hopfolk
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 01:19 PM

Ooh, I've got a great angle on it...

Read the "Conan" series by Robert Howard (THE American fiction god)... No really, there are some 30 books in the series and they all rock.

R.E.Howard was big into the racial stereotyping thing (and not in a bad way) and his Black-haired Blue-eyed creation Conan was an Atlantean!!!

That's right folks, the Black-Irish are the last of the Atlanteans.

Or a sub-genus evolved from prehistoric pre-celtic hunter-gatherer stock (Straight from Sumeria - all Jet black hair and proto-language) that got trapped when the Euro-Irish land-bridge drowned (ATLANTIS!). I mean - blue eyedness is just an adaptation to cope with all the rain, it wouldn't take more than 500 years.

Am I right?

Peace CamoJohn

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Diarmuid, U.S.A.
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 11:50 AM

Carlos,
      Thank you for introducing some sanity and logic to an otherwise divisive and contentious topic. I am curious as to why this whole business seems to an American phenomenon. My question to anyone interested in this subject is the term "Black Irish" (in an American context) to be taken as a compliment, an insult or merely a neutral observation?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 06 May 05 - 03:50 PM

Well done Carlos, surely your detailed explanation will convince our US friends that the "black Irish" myth is a load of baloney.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Wyllow
Date: 06 May 05 - 02:29 PM

Carlos is right. The "Black Irish" are nothing more than the original Celtic settlers. Red or blonde hair with green eyes was a later import, possibly from the Viking invaders. I've only been to Ireland once, but I could clearly pick out these two types on the streets of Dublin.

Here's a bit of the old Celtic story of Deirdre...(which I'm sure predates the Spanish Armada!)...

One day, Deirdre and her nurse were walking in the woods. It was wintertime, and they came upon Deirdre's foster father, who was butchering a calf. The red blood ran in the white snow, and a raven came to peck at it.
Deirdre said to her nurse,"I could love a man with those three colors: hair black as the raven's wing, skin white as the snow, cheeks as red as blood". Her nurse replied, "I know of such a man, and he lives nearby...."

There you have it, the description of the typical early Celt...black hair, and white skin with a high color.

Hope this helps,
Wyllow

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 06 May 05 - 10:50 AM

Carlos, most informative. Thanks for taking the time to post. So the truth is that the "Black Irish" are Irish with black hair. Who'd 'a' thunk it ?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Galician
Date: 06 May 05 - 10:05 AM

From Carlos Aradas, A Coruña, Galicia, Spain

Right, I have heard enough crap about the Armada and the "Black Irish" being descendants from "Spaniards." It seems to me that certain people should get informed on what they write about before spreading generalised misconceptions even more.

Even without knowing much about history or genetics, several genral-knowledge, commonsensical realities make very improbable the myth of Armada survivors having had any impact on the current Irish population:

1) Spanish people are mostly dark-haired, OK, so far so good. But, jet-black hair (the colour attributed to the black Irish) is only found in a small percentage of the population (10-15%), the rest being various shades of brown. Moreover, 17% of Spaniards have fair/blond hair. Blondism being recessive, the percentage of Spanish people carrying "blond genes" would approach half of the population according to basic Mendelian rules (the chances of their off-spring being fair-haired are not negligible especially if mixing with Northern Europeans). Basically, that means that for the Black Irish to be descendants of Spanish sailors:

- All of their forefathers would have to fall into the 10-15% Spaniards with jet-black hair. Highly improbable bearing in mind that many of them were noblemen who claimed "purity of blood." (Nothing wrong with having Jewish or Arab blood, but they were probably right...)

- They would have survived in great numbers and decided to stay in Ireland leaving their Estates, family and friends behind for good, even knowing that Spanish possessions in Europe (Flanders) were at easy reach.

- They would have been welcomed by the Irish population, who would have offered them their daughters gladly.

- They would have escaped English persecution.

- They would have married jet-black haired women exclusively and their descendants (for over 400 years) never mixed with any blond/red-haired natives.

I mean, folks, get real!

The thing is that THERE IS A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE IRISH AND THE SPANIARDS, BUT IT GOES BACK TO THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE THE ARMADA EPISODE:

The Herald, September 10 2004
CELTIC nations such as Scotland and Ireland have more in common with the Portuguese and Spanish than with the Celts of central Europe, according to a new academic report.
Historians have long believed that the British Isles were swamped by a massive invasion of Iron Age Celts from central Europe around 500BC.
However, geneticists at Trinity College in Dublin now claim that the Scots and Irish have more in common with the people of north-western Spain.
Dr Daniel Bradley, genetics lecturer at Trinity College, said a new study into Celtic origins revealed close affinities with the people of Galicia.
He said: "It's well-known that there are cultural relations between the areas but now this shows there is much more. We think the links are much older than that of the Iron Age because it also shows affinities with the Basque region, which isn't a Celtic region."
He added: "The links point towards other Celtic nations, in particular Scotland, but they also point to Spain."
Historians believed the Celts, originally Indo-European, invaded the Atlantic islands in a massive migration 2500 years ago.
But using DNA samples from people living in Celtic nations and other parts of Europe, geneticists at the university have drawn new parallels.
Dr Bradley said it was possible migrants moved from the Iberian peninsula to Ireland as far back as 6000 years ago up until 3000 years ago.
"I don't agree with the idea of a massive Iron Age invasion that took over the Atlantic islands. You can regard the ocean, rather than a barrier, as a communication route," Dr Bradley said.
Archaeologists have also been questioning the links between the Celts of eastern France and southern Germany and the people of the British Isles and the new research appears to prove their theories.
The Dublin study found that people in areas traditionally known as Celtic, such as Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Brittany and Cornwall, had strong links with each other and had more in common with people from the Iberian peninsula.
It also found people in Ireland have more in common with Scots than any other nation.
"What we would propose is that this commonality among the Atlantic facade is much older, 6000 years ago or earlier," Dr Bradley added.
There are also close links between Scotland and Ireland dating back much further than the plantations of the 1600s when many Scots moved to Northern Ireland in search of fertile farming lands, the research showed.
However, the researchers could not determine whether fair skin, freckles, red hair and fiery tempers truly are Celtic traits.
Stephen Oppenheimer, professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Oxford, said that the Celts of western Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Cornwall were descended from an ancient people living on the Atlantic coast when Britain was still attached to mainland Europe, while the English were more closely related to the Germanic peoples of the interior.
He said: "The English are the odd ones out because they are the ones more linked to continental Europe. The Scots, the Irish, the Welsh and the Cornish are all very similar in their genetic pattern to the Basque."

The study headed by Dr Bradley was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
http://www.geocities.com/vetinarilord/celt.pdf
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v75n5/41573/brief/41573.abstract.html
http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/Underhill_2004_p487-494.pdf
Nesta outra ligação um patriota irlandês recolhe informes científicos sobre o irmão Povo Irlandês:
http://www.geocities.com/diarmidlogan/genetics.html

MORE FACTS ABOUT THE ARMADA:

In fact, it seems likely that few, if any, survivors of the Armada took up residence in Ireland. For one thing, there weren't many survivors. Perhaps as many as 17 Spanish ships ran aground or sank off the Irish coast in the fall of 1588, as the crippled Armada made its roundabout way home after its defeat in the English Channel. The records of the period are incomplete, but it's possible that as many as 6,000 Spanish soldiers and sailors were dumped into the sea. Of these, 2,000 or more simply drowned. One contemporary account claimed that 1,100 bodies washed up on a five-mile stretch of beach.

Between 3,000 and 3,500 of the remainder were killed or captured by the English or their Irish minions. The English had fewer than 2,000 troops to maintain their hold on Ireland, so they resorted to the expedient of not taking any prisoners. In one instance, several hundred Spaniards were induced to surrender with the promise of honorable treatment, only to be methodically butchered the next morning.

The richest or most prominent of the survivors were held for ransom, or for public spectacle (the English always were a class act). Only a few hundred of the castaways managed to make it to Scotland and to the Continent with the help of sympathetic Irishmen, themselves no great lovers of the English, who at the time were attempting to consolidate their grip on their miserable neighbor.

Frankly, there was little to induce the shipwrecked soldiers and sailors to stay. The Spanish considered the Irish to be savages-- evidently they'd been to a few Notre Dame games--and they thought the island was a cold and forbidding place. One Captain Francisco de Cuellar, who managed to make it to Spanish-held Antwerp, relates in a letter how an Irish chieftain, impressed by de Cuellar's bravery, offered him his daughter's hand in marriage. The Spaniard's response was to sneak away in the middle of the night.

A few Spaniards stuck around for a while, of course; several were on hand to help a combined force of Scotch and Irish defeat an English army at Ballyshannon in northwest Ireland in 1597. But it's fair to say the Armada's castoffs didn't make much of a dent on the ethnic makeup of the country.

I HOPE THIS CLARIFIES IT.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 03 May 05 - 03:19 AM

Now, Paul McGrath was real black Irish, and one of our best ever footballers, had damm all links with the Spanish Armada

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 03 May 05 - 01:55 AM

I thought the Armada myth had been debunked. They were surely too few survivors to make much difference to the bloodstock. However, the earliest settlers of Ireland and the Western Isles are believed to have come up from Spain and there were plety of trade links over the centuries.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Black Irish: Etymological Consensus?
From: GUEST,Big Mick
Date: 03 May 05 - 01:02 AM

Amen BPL. I wonder if they bothered to read the links. Some folks just like to hear themselves type.

Mick