Black Irish

For the film by this name, see Black Irish (film). For black people in Ireland, see Black people in Ireland.

Black Irish is an ambiguous term used mainly outside of Ireland. Over the course of history, it has been subject to several distinctive ascriptions, including religious affiliation and poverty. Modern traditionalists, however, maintain the term to be synonymous with a dark-haired phenotype exhibited by certain individuals originally descended from Ireland. Opinions vary in regard to what is perceived as the usual physical characteristics of the so-called Black Irish: e.g., dark hair, brown eyes and medium skin tone; or dark hair, blue or green eyes and fair skin tone. Unbeknown to some who have used this term at one time or another, dark hair in people of Irish descent is extremely common, although darker skin complexions appear less frequently.

Early 21st century genetic studies have provided new insights into the origins of Irish people as well as their neighbours from other parts of the British Isles. Correspondingly, researchers in the field have suggested that migrations from Prehistoric Iberia can be viewed as the primary source for their genetic material, having demonstrated marked similarities with modern representatives of the aforementioned time period in that of the Basque people. This idea has since been revised as the majority of Irish males fall under the R1b sub-clade L-21, which is quite rare for Basques.

Prehistory

The first clear evidence of human habitation in Ireland has been carbon dated to about 7000 BC. Legends, such as those described in the Book of Invasions, refer to a number of pre-historical ethnic groups, including the Fomorians, Nemedians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha Dé Danann and Milesians. Despite the lack of empirical data linking them to the Irish, one or more of these races have been acknowledged in previous and current ancestral studies, such as Dennis O'Mullally's History of O'Mullally and Lally Clan, or The history of an Irish family through the ages intertwined with that of the Irish nation, wherein the author points to the Fir Bolg as "the aboriginal people of Ireland, smaller in stature than the Gaels, with jet-black hair and dark eyes, contrasting with unusually white skin."

Spanish Armada

The physical traits of the black Irish are sometimes thought to have been the result of an Iberian admixture originating with survivors of the Spanish Armada. Most Armada survivors were killed on the beaches, and many of the remnants eventually escaped from Ireland, but a group of Spanish soldiers ended up serving as armed retainers to the Irish chiefs Brian O'Rourke, Sorley Boy MacDonnell and Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone. Such survivors, although relatively few in number, could have genetic influence through the founder effect.

The genetic evidence is that the survivors of the Spanish Armada probably left no legacy, as the Irish have only minute amounts of Neolithic Italic Y chromosome genetic markers, such as G and J, which are present in trace levels throughout Spain. These results may be spurious as the Atlantic Modal Haplotype R1b is present in most Western European males including most Spanish and Irish males. (The exception is the Basque Country).

Iberian connection

The Spanish Armada myth is thought to have been a corruption of a story based on the Milesians, the purported descendants of Míl Espáine (Latin Miles Hispaniae, "Soldier of Hispania", later pseudo-Latinised as "Milesius"), speculated to represent Celtic-speaking peoples from the western Iberian peninsula who began to migrate to Ireland and Britain in the fifth century B.C. Genetic research shows a strong similarity between the Y chromosome haplotypes of males from north-western Spain and northern Portugal and Irish men with Gaelic surnames. There is a significant difference between peoples of the west and the east of Ireland. Genetic marker R1b reaches frequencies as high as 98% in north-western Ireland and 95% in south-western Ireland, but drops to 73% in north-eastern Ireland and 85% in south-eastern Ireland. Additionally, R1b averages between 90% and 95% in Y chromosomes of the Basques of northern Spain (and south-western France), considerably greater than levels of the same haplogroup found amongst the remaining Spanish genepool, where it varies from region to region in a range from 42% to 75%, but mostly with percentages in the 50s and 60s.

In recently published books (Blood of the Isles by Bryan Sykes and The Origins of the British - A Genetic Detective Story by Stephen Oppenheimer), both authors propose that ancient inhabitants of Ireland can be traced back to the Iberian Peninsula, as a result of a series of migrations that took place during the Mesolithic and to a lesser extent the Neolithic Age. The Ice Age caused the depopulation of the British Isles. After glaciers retreated, the islands were populated by migrations from the Iberian Peninsula. These migrations laid the foundations for present-day populations in the British Isles, contributing three-quarters of the ancestral population, according to Oppenheimer. However there is no evidence everyone left the British Isles or that they necessarily went all the way to Iberia. A movement of Northern Europeans south would have left Northern genetic material in southern Europe. Portable cave art and settlements have been found in Northern Europe even during/after the ice age, although populations were small. The ice sheets didnt reach everywhere in Britain the southern parts.of Britain and Ireland were ice free and most simply would have moved just outside or where they could live. Later migrations of Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans appear to be much less significant in terms of genetic additions than previously thought. Oppenheimer maintains there is a great lineal commonality between the Irish and British people. He also advances the controversial claim that a language closely related to Basque was long ago spoken by their shared ancestors.

A similar theory was examined in the early eighties by Bob Quinn with his trilogy of documentary films entitled Atlantean. He argued for the existence of a west Atlantic continuum of people, and linked the region of Connemara, in Ireland's West, with Iberian and Berber types who supposedly travelled from across the sea over a period spanning several thousand years.

Hair, skin and eye colour statistics in Ireland

C. Wesley Dupertuis conducted a survey of Irish people in the 1940s under the guidance of the Department of Anthropology of Harvard University, and gathered the following data.

The hair colour of the Irish is predominantly brown. Less than 15% have black or ashen hair; 50% have dark brown hair. Medium brown hues make up another 15%. Persons with blond and light brown hair account for close to 5%, while approximately 10% have auburn or red hair. Both golden and dark brown shades can be seen in the south-western counties of Ireland, but fairest hair in general is most common in the Central Plain. Ulster has been evidenced to have the highest frequencies of red hair, with the lowest found in Wexford and Waterford.

Studies have indicated the Irish are "almost uniquely pale skinned when unexposed, untanned parts of the body, are observed" and "40% of the entire group are freckled to some extent." Moreover, "in the proportion of pure light eyes", data shows that "Ireland competes successfully with the blondest regions of Scandinavia", as approximately 42% of the Irish population have pure blue eyes. Another 30% have been found to possess light-mixed eyes and "less than 1 half of 1% have pure brown".

Black Irish in the southern United States

In the southern United States, mixed-race descendants of European and Native Americans, or European and African Americans, sometimes called themselves "black Irish" or "black Dutch" to explain their colouring and conceal their minority heritage. This was particularly the case during the Indian Removal era of the 1830s. The forced removal of the Cherokee and other nations from native land to the Indian Territory, accompanied by laws that forbade Natives to own land, and denied them the right to vote, led Native Americans and people of mixed race to hide their ethnic heritage. This spurious identification as "black Irish" or "black Dutch" has persisted among the descendants of these people for over 100 years. (See Trail of Tears.)

See also

• Basque people
• Celtiberians
• Gaels
• Galician people
• Asturian people
• Iberians
• Irish American
• Irish people
• Lebor Gabála Érenn
• Milesians
• Picts
• Black Dutch
• Spain (surname)

External links

• "Genes Link Celts to Basques", BBC News, 3 Apr 2001
• "DNA shows Scots and Irish should look to Spain for their ancestry", The Scotsman, 10 September 2004
• "English, Irish, Scots: They're All One, Genes Suggest"', The New York Times, 5 Mar 2007