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Spanish Influence in West Ireland
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Subject: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: John in Brisbane Date: 27 Apr 98 - 08:44 PM From the Spancil Hill thread I am reminded that during the times of the Spanish Armada there was a degree of procreation between the Spanish and locals from the West coast of Ireland. I don;t know the real speelling but my family came from Abbeydawney, somewhere near Tralee. The presence of olive skin and dark eyes in a few members of my otherwise Irish family has prompted some of my parents' generation to refer to the earlier Spanish genes. Apart from Spanish Lady is there any other mention of this in song? Regards John |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Bruce O. Date: 27 Apr 98 - 09:55 PM "The Spanish Lady" is in my broadside index. There's also one on a Spanish Gentleman and a few others on Spanish women, and tunes "The Spanish Gypises" and "The Spanish Pavan", but I can't see any connection of any to Ireland. The question was asked on the Irish music thread a few months ago if the 'black Irish' were descended from Spaniards. The ovewhelming answer was that there's nothing known to be descended from Spaniards in Ireland. But later someone decided that the name of a pier (or something like that) in Dublin was Spanish or Italian. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Dave Brennan Date: 27 Apr 98 - 10:03 PM Abbeydorney in Gaelic is Mainister O dTorna. There's a Spanish Point outside of Milltown Malbay in County Clare. I'm not sure but I think in Gaelic it would be Rinn na Spainneach. There's a lot of Irish songs that invoke Spain. Did you have any in particular in mind? |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: aldus Date: 28 Apr 98 - 09:37 AM This Spanish Armada myth is just that... a myth. Very few Spaniards came ashore, certainly not enough of them to account for the dark hair and brown eyes of many Irish. Nice story, but it just ain't so. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Tim O'K Date: 28 Apr 98 - 10:13 AM I believe more than twenty ships from the Spanish Armada wrecked off the western coast of Ireland on their return trip in a series of storms. If you've seen that coast, you'll understand why the chance of survival of a sailor in a shipwreck, in a storm, on that coast, was virtually nil, let alone enough for a viable gene pool. The genes producing the dark hair and eyes certainly came from the usual sources, traders, immigrants, misc travelors, and of course sailors doing what sailors usually do in port. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Jon W. Date: 28 Apr 98 - 01:21 PM Hold on, I thought that the Celts and Picts were dark haired, dark eyed folks and that the red hair, fair skin, and blue eyed Irish came from the Vikings doing what Vikings did (as it was once expressed in a humor magazine: rape, plunder, pillage, rape, burn, rape, rob, steal, rape, rape, and rape). |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Date: 28 Apr 98 - 01:44 PM There is certainly a lot of Norse blood in Ireland, but from what I remember of my Irish history, the Celts who "settled" (read invaded and killed every inhabitent) Ireland supposedly came from Northern Spain after the tin mines there in Castille played out. Those Celts did have red hair and blue eyes and freckles and you can still see those same characteristics in their decendents today in that part of Espana. There were lots of Celtic tribes around the continent at that time, however, but I don't know if any were darker or if they were part of that initial settlement. This is all from my admittedly sketchy memory, so if anyone has more accurate info, I'd love to hear it. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Bruce O. Date: 28 Apr 98 - 01:55 PM What time was this? But what is Spanish here? Moors and Vandals (and Romans earlier) also occupied much of that country at a much earlier date than Spanish Armada days. I don't hink there were any Celts left in continental Europe in 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella kicked out the last of the Moors. Dan Mulligan gave some history of Celtic migrations to Ireland (B.C.) on a thread 'Celtic Music'. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Bruce O. Date: 28 Apr 98 - 02:06 PM I forgot that Hanibal's brother, Hamilcar?, occupied Spain too, so we may have Carthagians (Phoenicians/ Palestinians) mixed in a little, too if we go back far enough. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Alice Date: 28 Apr 98 - 03:50 PM For what it is worth (don't know how accurate this is) I found this in old letters of my great-aunt Alice Flynn, who was born in Leitrim in 1872. "I am reading a history of the Irish race. So far I have got to the Militian race. My father was very proud he belonged to that race. They are black haired. Where Irish have married Danes, their hair is light colored." Alice, in Montana |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Alice Date: 28 Apr 98 - 03:57 PM Didn't intend that to be a reference to the Spanish or the coast, just another comment on the hair-color. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: AndyG Date: 29 Apr 98 - 07:48 AM HISTORICAL: Briefly, most of the Spaniards who came ashore in Ireland following the defeat of the Armada did so as a result of shipwreck.
Many of these survivors were murdered at the point they came ashore by the resident Irish, for plunder, some however remained alive.
Almost all the Spaniards still alive in Ireland following the wrecks on the coast were rounded up, as quickly as possible, by the English forces. They were put to death, as they posed a serious threat to English rule being:
The number of individual Spaniards who are known to have returned to Spain from Ireland can be "counted on the fingers of one hand".
OPINION:
Personally I'd attribute the occasional appearance of "Spanish" features to wanderers such as Romany/Gypsy/Tinker groups who move through Europe, and constantly re-appear, and thus refresh their genetic legacy, rather than rely on a 400 year (12-16 generation) "throwback" argument to explain the fairly common occurence of this "Spanishness".
AndyG |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Date: 29 Apr 98 - 07:57 AM Are these the folks sometimes referred to as The Black Irish? |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,Thomas Date: 23 Feb 09 - 04:34 PM Thanks for the info of the spanish ifluince |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 23 Feb 09 - 06:40 PM "Are these the folks sometimes referred to as The Black Irish?" I had heard this story long ago, and it came to mind when I saw the flamenco dance in the TV broadcast of the original Riverdance. Is that why it was included? In the Netherlands, the word for furniture is Mueblen, a cognate of the Spanish word Muebles? For a time the Low Countries were under the direct control of Spain. Coincidence that a Germanic language uses Spanish words? |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 Feb 09 - 07:57 PM Furniture in German is Möbel. In English, moble is an obsolete word for movable goods, and was spelt mueble or moeble in the 14th-16 c., it is related to the Spanish mueble and Scottish meuble (mobylle, etc.). OED I don't know when mueblen came to the Netherlands, but more likely it came from Germany. Scotland had many Dutch workmen and artisans in the 15th-16th c, and adopted some of their styles in building and furnishings so perhaps they picked up the word from the Dutch. However, how all this came about, I dunno; I would be guessing. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 23 Feb 09 - 08:16 PM Thank you, Q. I have an OED Compact...4 pages per page + magnifier; I shouda looked it up m'self. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Jack Campin Date: 23 Feb 09 - 08:45 PM The words all came from Latin "mobilis", "movable", used as a legal term to describe property you could pick up and move, unlike land or a house. Roman law got all over Europe. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 Feb 09 - 09:10 PM Jack, that seems logical. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,MV Date: 24 Feb 09 - 09:40 AM I think the Armada connection is a myth I've heard of people of British ancestry being described as probably having Spanish ancestors from the time of the Armada because of their dark features. There was migration to these isles from France and Spain going way back. According to folklore the Gaels came to Ireland from Spain in ancient times. Both Britain and Ireland had many different waves of settlement over thousands of years. This explains why we have a variety of appearances. MV |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Betsy Date: 24 Feb 09 - 10:00 AM I think a contributory factor may have been Irishmen bringing back lady friends during the conflicts between Philip the King of Spain and the Catholic church. There are wuite a few songs about the Irish songs recalling such enlistments - "Fare thee well Enniskillen" , the "Dirty King of Spain" for example. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,Peter Laban Date: 24 Feb 09 - 10:04 AM The men and women stranded when the Armada tried to round Ireland were mostly rounded up and hanged. The Spanish Arch in Galway is supposed t oremind us of traffic between the city of the tribes and Spain, and the Spanish-Galway type ofcourse. But all that aside, recent genetic research has found the 'Irish gene' has come from North Spain. Settlers from there came to Ireland and pretty much stayed put after arrival, to the extend that a tv documentary recently had dna of a child found buried in a wedge tomb in the Burren some years ago compared to children presently in the local school. They were directly related. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,MV Date: 24 Feb 09 - 10:52 AM I think I remember seeing a DNA programme saying there were significant DNA markers in Ireland, Wales and South West England to suggest that a lot of people there had ancestors who migrated from South West France and Spain. If you look at a map of the sea route it makes sense for those people to have settled in Ireland and Western Britain. MV |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,Learaí na Láibe Date: 24 Feb 09 - 11:37 AM I've been using the internet for nearly ten years and it suprises me how often this modern mythof the 'Black Irish' being descended from survivors of the Spanish Armada keeps coming back again and again. There is no credible evidence whatsoever for any significent number of survivors staying and intermarrying. One simple point, we have historical surnames in Ireland from Scandinavia, France, Britain and Flanders etc. but none from Spain or Portugal. But why let facts get in the way of this legend so popular with our Irish-American cousins. We have all kind of hair colous and skin tones in Ireland from dusky Mediterranian to flaxen blond Germanic. And by the way ony a small minority have red hair. I don't know the exact percentage but doubtless a little Googling might turn the figure up. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,Jim Martin Date: 24 Feb 09 - 11:28 PM Learai na Laibe - How do you explain the DNA evidence then? |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 24 Feb 09 - 11:46 PM Guest,Leara Is it possible that there are no Spanish surnames because, the 'few' Spaniards perhaps had out-of-wedlock relations with the local damsels, which resulted in some births? This happened in Jewish communities in ancient, and perhaps not so ancient, times, when they were conquered, pillage and the other thing. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 25 Feb 09 - 12:02 AM What is a 'Spanish' name? Mostly we think of Castilian names when the subject comes up. Much of northern and eastern Spain had different languages. What percentage of inhabitants of northern Spain were not dark-haired? Many. And Catalans have all possible hair colors except flaxen. The Armada story based on 'dark hair' is nonsense and based on ignorance of Spain's diversity. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: katlaughing Date: 25 Feb 09 - 12:04 AM Doing a google search, I found this entertaining and informative take on the question at The Straight Dope. And, just to stir the pot a bit more, here's something from a site, dated 2003, concerning Spanish surnames which originated in Ireland, according to the author, from HERE (that's a cached page): I am aware of the theory that the mythical Milesian Invasion of Ireland was in fact a folk memory of actual prehistoric immigrations from Spain but I was referring to Irish names that entered into Spanish from the 16th century onwards. A certain Cathal O'Neill of Tyrone is recorded in the histories of the Spanish army as Carlos Onel di Tirone, for example. Names such as Kennedy (an epithet of a son of Brian Boroimhe) can be shown to have originated in Ireland and not from Spain or any other Celtic region. There may well be many names in Irish that derive from prehistoric or Iron Age Celtiberian origins but it would be difficult to prove any such derivation given the antiquity of the names involved. Many Celtic and therefore, Gaelic names share a common Celtic origin, (such as Lugh, Lleu, Lugos) and it would be difficult to pinpoint a geographical origin for any particular name. My particular interest is in the names of Irish mercenaries who joined the Spanish (and French) Army after the Tudor plantation of Ireland. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: John on the Sunset Coast Date: 25 Feb 09 - 12:07 AM Hey, I just commented on an anecdote I heard in the dim past. I don't know if it's nonsense or not, but just saying it is doesn't make it so. Give me some cites or sites. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: MartinRyan Date: 25 Feb 09 - 04:25 AM IIRC the DNA evidence referred to much earlier migrations via/from Northern Spain. There is no evidence, as far as I know, of any specific impact of the few survivors of the Armada. Some of the tales relocate from place to place along the West coast - bit like the tail of the Hartlepool monkey! Regards p.s. On a musical note, anybody recognise the Spanish connection to the "Falaingín Muimhneach" (Munster Cloak) tune? |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Thompson Date: 25 Feb 09 - 05:30 AM Spanish ships have sailed up and Irish ships have sailed down the European coast for millennia - it would be pretty odd if the occasional liaison hadn't happened. In my childhood, Spanish 'lifers' had the choice of serving their time in jail or in the fishing fleet. When the weather was threatening, these boats used to dock in Kilronan in the Aran Islands, and probably also in Galway Harbour. There was certainly a healthy trade in alcohol - poitín swapped for Spanish brandy, with the Revenue men knowing nothing about either. Spanish names; my mother used to theorise that Hernon was derived from Hernandez. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Betsy Date: 25 Feb 09 - 10:59 AM I suppose he turn out to be Irish an'all - the new guy in the White House - Mr O'Bama no less . |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,Nor Date: 07 Mar 09 - 12:09 AM Have been to Spain, and sorry to say Galway in no way represents anything remotely Spanish- including the people. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Les in Chorlton Date: 07 Mar 09 - 04:22 AM Apart from the Indo-European language? |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Jack Campin Date: 07 Mar 09 - 05:58 AM On a musical note, anybody recognise the Spanish connection to the "FalaingÌn Muimhneach" (Munster Cloak) tune? Well-known urban legend - it's a variant of the 17th century Scottish Border song "Bannocks of bear meal" (aka "Tho for Seven Long Years" or "A lad and a lass lay in a killogie"), nothing whatever to do with Spain. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: MartinRyan Date: 07 Mar 09 - 02:13 PM Hi Jack So where (or whence, I suppose) did the Spaniards pick it up? 'Cos they certainly have it! Granados' Jota (Rondalla Aragonesa) Regards |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Jack Campin Date: 07 Mar 09 - 07:48 PM Similar opening phrase, but from there on it is WAY more different from either "The Munster Cloak" or "Bannocks of bear meal" than either is from the other. It doesn't have a hint of the verse/chorus structure the British Isles tunes have. I'd put the resemblance of the Spanish tune to the others down to fluke - a fairly natural riff that could have been reinvented anywhere that had the same sort of tonal vocabulary. (In Scottish music alone, you get the same sort of rising sequence in "Hey tuti tati", aka "Scots Wha Hae"). Once people got the idea of building a tune over a bass line (around 1600), you got very similar tunes reinvented all over Europe. Compare "La Folia de Espana" with the "Lament for the Bishop of Argyll" in the Macfarlan MS - no reason I know of to think there's a genetic relationship. There was substantial sea trade between Scotland and Spain as far back as 1500 - Francisco Ayala commented on having encountered Scottish salted herrings at home. Fishermen were always an international community, and the Basques (next door to Aragon) got all over the north Atlantic. But we don't have any musical trace of this. There is also a rather obvious historical connection between England and Aragon around 1500, but I doubt royal marriages ever did a lot to transmit folk tunes. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 07 Mar 09 - 08:15 PM Those Basque fishermen were all over the place. Some possibility that they were fishing off the Grand Banks before Columbus got to the West Indies. Records show that they were there at the beginning of the 1500s. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Gulliver Date: 08 Mar 09 - 05:03 AM Last year some dna tests were done on people from the west of Ireland who were dark-skinned, as part of a TV documentary. The results showed that their ancestors could not have come to Ireland in the last few centuries. But the documentary did show that the Irish could trace their ancestry back to what is now the Basque region of Spain, from where they gradually migrated along the Atlantic coastline to Ireland about nine thousand years ago. Don |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Jim Carroll Date: 08 Mar 09 - 04:13 PM I bow to the superior knowledge of those who have the facts of this question, but the folklore of Spanish influence is certainly still strong around here (West Clare). About a mile from here on the shore there is a spot referred to as 'The Yellow Men's Graves' where. it is claimed there are bodies of six Spanish sailors who swam ashore from the sinking ships of the Armada and were massacred by the locals for their belongings. Apropos of nothing at all; in 1988, as part of the 400th anniversary celebrations there were several commemorative events held, including a very detailed and academic lecture which was attended by the King of Spain. Two-and-a-half hours into the lecture the voice of one of our local schoolteachers was heard from the back of the hall loudly complaining, "Jesus; ten minutes to closing time and the ******* haven't left ******* Spain yet". Jim Carroll |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: ard mhacha Date: 08 Mar 09 - 04:42 PM Not again, this discussion has been flogged to death on this Site, [as were the poor Spanish survivors who struggled ashore on the west coast]. While I was in the US I was pestered to explain the black Irish, I could only point to Cromwell`s deportations of Irish slaves to the West Indies. If only Obama had been around at the time, now here is the true black Irish, well some nuts in Clare are flogging his Irish ancestry. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: MartinRyan Date: 08 Mar 09 - 04:48 PM Offaly, Offaly, awefully, awfully...... Regards |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Mar 09 - 09:54 PM Here's what happened to the Armada survivors in the northern isles of Scotland: Fair Isle and the Westray Dons |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: open mike Date: 08 Mar 09 - 10:12 PM there is definately Celtic culture on the spanish peninsula. Esp/. in Asturias where there is a Celtic band called LLan de Cubel www.llandecubel.com/ , en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llan_de_cubel http://www.folkworld.de/2/llan.html |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: ard mhacha Date: 09 Mar 09 - 05:35 AM Right you are Martin, bloody awful. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST,Eamonn Shanahan Date: 26 Apr 09 - 12:29 PM The Latin word for Ireland is Hibernia which derives from Iberia, the origin of the largest group of Celts who came from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Those people were known as the Milesians and they came to Ireland roughly 2,000 years ago. Ireland was known as "Hibernia" for at least 1,000 years before the Spanish Armada came. The Spanish Armada have absolutely nothing to do with the dark haired Irish. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: GUEST Date: 26 Apr 09 - 12:47 PM The Irish people are mostly descended from Dan and came to Ireland at various times, under various names, as they migrated by different routes and arrived at different times, having picked up new names along the way. One of those names makes their identity more obvious than the others and that name is the Tuatha de Danaan - the Tribe of Dan; who was the fifth of Jacob/Israel's twelve sons. Jacob/Israel's twelve sons fathered the twelve tribes of Israel. Prior to the De Danaans were the Nemidhians (Sons of Heaven) who came from Carthage which was a Phoenician Danite settlement or Sanctuary (Nemidh), in what is now Tunisia. The Phoenician sailors of ancient history were mostly Israelites from the tribes of Dan; Gad and Simeon. Phoenicia was a region not a country, just as Europe is a region and not a country. After the Tuatha de Danaans came to Ireland, there were, at various times, further immigrations of Danites under the name Milesians (sons of Mil, who was a Danite warrior, from which the name milesian later came to mean warrior) and of course later still as Dan-ish Vikings and Norsemen. |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: MartinRyan Date: 26 Apr 09 - 03:02 PM God be with the Christian Brothers, who taught me all that (nonsense) when I was a child. As I read it, I can actually see, in my minds eye, the colour of the cover on the little booklet they used, and the two-column layout. Wonderful! Regards |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: Little Robyn Date: 26 Apr 09 - 03:37 PM About 35 years back I learned a tune called "Spanish Cloak". More recently I've heard it on recordings and it has other names including "The Munster Cloak". Robyn |
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Subject: RE: Spanish Influence in West Ireland From: MartinRyan Date: 26 Apr 09 - 03:40 PM Little Robyn Yes - thats the Munster Cloak/Falaingín Muimhneach tune mentioned earlier. Regards |
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