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firie · 06-08-2010, 06:30 PM

I grew up with the understanding that my grandfather's family (maternal) was "Black Irish." Interestingly, most of the people in his family were/are blonde and blue-eyed and "Black Irish" was always discussed as a condition of poverty, like so poor you were constantly dirty, and so blackened by dirt/soot, and my grandfather was quite ashamed of that because he grew up quite poor.

I have read a bit about it, because it has always intrigued me. No one, apparently, can quite pin down exactly where it started or why, and it is sometimes pejoratively linked to poverty and so a classist slur (association to the potato famine (black potatoes/black death)) or to shanty towns, or to the very poor immigrants coming into the US as a result of the famine, but also to phenotype (African, Native American, French, Jewish, Caribbean, and even Spanish), and with the exception of the "Spanish/Irish" phenotype, was generally thought to be a racist slur, and a product of the entrenched racial discrimination carried over from English sentiment to the US toward the Irish as "savages" along with Africans and Native Americans--some Irish were enslaved and shipped to parts of Africa by the English (there is some speculation that the name came from the Irish that actually stayed on the continent, but it also seems unlikely). Most of what I have read seems to suggest, however, that the actual usage of "Black Irish" is a purely American phenomenon, and that the Irish don't really use the reference, and that it might have connections to where the Irish found themselves in early African and Native American slave history in the US.

There are very romanticized stories that "Black Irish" came from a mix of Irish and elite Spanish blood, an attempt in folklore by the Irish to step up in the world a bit, and so perhaps they actually fabricated a very glorious event at one point in history, where a ship in the Spanish Armada wrecked into the coast of Eire and Irish ladies felt awful for the worn Spanish warriors, and so nursed them, and then had their children, and thus you have the link to darkened hair and eyes so associated with these mythical phenotypes of "Black Irish"; this, and other variations of the Spanish connection, to most scholars, is complete myth.

The whole topic is something I have been interested in for some time. Here is a neat look at some of the theories out there, link here.

I am now going to read the links about "Black Dutch" because I have never heard of that before and must know if this phrase is as curious in history as "Black Irish."

06-08-2010, 06:30 PM	#22
firie Timed Out How Do You Identify?: . Relationship Status: . Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: . Posts: 204 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 191 Thanked 469 Times in 128 Posts Rep Power: 0	I grew up with the understanding that my grandfather's family (maternal) was "Black Irish." Interestingly, most of the people in his family were/are blonde and blue-eyed and "Black Irish" was always discussed as a condition of poverty, like so poor you were constantly dirty, and so blackened by dirt/soot, and my grandfather was quite ashamed of that because he grew up quite poor. I have read a bit about it, because it has always intrigued me. No one, apparently, can quite pin down exactly where it started or why, and it is sometimes pejoratively linked to poverty and so a classist slur (association to the potato famine (black potatoes/black death)) or to shanty towns, or to the very poor immigrants coming into the US as a result of the famine, but also to phenotype (African, Native American, French, Jewish, Caribbean, and even Spanish), and with the exception of the "Spanish/Irish" phenotype, was generally thought to be a racist slur, and a product of the entrenched racial discrimination carried over from English sentiment to the US toward the Irish as "savages" along with Africans and Native Americans--some Irish were enslaved and shipped to parts of Africa by the English (there is some speculation that the name came from the Irish that actually stayed on the continent, but it also seems unlikely). Most of what I have read seems to suggest, however, that the actual usage of "Black Irish" is a purely American phenomenon, and that the Irish don't really use the reference, and that it might have connections to where the Irish found themselves in early African and Native American slave history in the US. There are very romanticized stories that "Black Irish" came from a mix of Irish and elite Spanish blood, an attempt in folklore by the Irish to step up in the world a bit, and so perhaps they actually fabricated a very glorious event at one point in history, where a ship in the Spanish Armada wrecked into the coast of Eire and Irish ladies felt awful for the worn Spanish warriors, and so nursed them, and then had their children, and thus you have the link to darkened hair and eyes so associated with these mythical phenotypes of "Black Irish"; this, and other variations of the Spanish connection, to most scholars, is complete myth. The whole topic is something I have been interested in for some time. Here is a neat look at some of the theories out there, link here. I am now going to read the links about "Black Dutch" because I have never heard of that before and must know if this phrase is as curious in history as "Black Irish."