Black Irish (folklore): Difference between revisions

The term "'''Black Irish'''" was initially used in the 19th and 20th centuries by [[Irish- Americans]] to describe people of [[Irish descent]] who have black or dark-colouredcolored hair, blue or dark eyes, or otherwise dark colouringcoloring.<ref>{{cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=Black Irish |url=https://www.oed.com/dictionary/black-irish_adj?tab=meaning_and_use&tl=true |access-date=8 December 2023 |work=[[Oxford English Dictionary]] |publisher= |quote=}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite news |last1=Keefe |first1=Nancy Q. |date=14 March 1975 |title=Irishisms |newspaper=The Berkshire Eagle |quote=Some readers...took these to be racist slurs.... Black Irish, properly so-called, are characterized by black hair, deep blue eyes, ruddy complexion and a streak of melancholy, which manifests itself in rage or sadness.}}</ref> This meaning is not frequently used in modern Ireland,<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=Burke |first=Mary M. |author-link= |url= |title=Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History |date=1 March 2023 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn= |location= |pages=91–93}}</ref> where "Black Irish" more often refers to [[Irish people of ErieAfrican descent]].<ref name="CSO">{{cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=Population Usually Resident and Present in the State FY023 |url=https://data.cso.ie/table/FY023 |access-date=7 December 2023 |website= |publisher=Central Statistics Office |quote=Black or Black Irish - African Number 67,546. Black or Black Irish - any other Black background Number 8,699}}</ref>

The firstmost common use of the term "Black Irish" is tied to the [[myth]] that they were descended from Spanish sailors shipwrecked during the [[Spanish Armada]] of 1588.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Everett |first1=C. S. |date=Summer 1999 |title=Melungeon History and Myth |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40933999 |journal=Appalachian Journal |volume=26 |issue=4 |pages=358–409 |doi= |jstor=40933999 |access-date=23 January 2024 |quote=The "Black Dutch", like the fictive "Black Irish", are a genealogical flight of fancy...Kunesh argues that Black Irish are a U.S. phenomenon with a background rooted only in the early 20th century. At the time of internet posting, Kunesh noted the lack of any mythical variants prior to the 20th century as well as a complete dearth of historical sources mentioning such a phenotype anywhere in Ireland.}}</ref><ref name="O'Toole">{{cite news |author=[[Fintan O'Toole]] |date=30 July 1999 |title=Alluring myth of 'Black Irish' may be a sign of hope |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/alluring-myth-of-black-irish-may-be-a-sign-of-hope-1.211843 |access-date= |work=[[Irish Times]] |location= |quote=One sign of it might be the persistence, largely in oral tradition, of the myth of the 'Black Irish', the supposed offspring of Spanish sailors thrown by the wreck of the Armada onto the Irish coast. The idea, for which there is little historical evidence, is still used in Ireland and in Irish America to explain the fact that some Irish people have a dark, swarthy appearance. It was celebrated a few years ago by the poet Paul Durcan in his long dramatic poem ''Nights in the Gardens of Spain''.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Scott |first1=Yarbrough |date=2017 |title=Cormac McCarthy's Literary Evolution: Editors, Agents, and the Crafting of a Prolific American Author |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1989487158 |journal=The Cormac McCarthy Journal |volume=15 |issue=2 |pages=204–207 |doi= 10.5325/cormmccaj.15.2.0204|id={{ProQuest|1989487158}} |access-date=24 January 2024 |quote=Well, perhaps. It seems much more likely that McCarthy was originally drawing upon the creation-myth origins of the so-called Black Irish: sailors who survived the destruction of the Spanish Armada swam to Irish shores and intermarried, thus introducing strains of dark hair and eyes into the fairhaired Irish gene pool.}}</ref><ref name="Van Vossole">{{cite journal |last1=Van Vossole |first1=Jonas |date=2016 |title=Framing PIGS: patterns of racism and neocolonialism in the Euro crisis. |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322X.2015.1128056 |journal=Patterns of Prejudice |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=7 |doi=10.1080/0031322X.2015.1128056 |access-date=6 December 2023 |quote=While not having the same history of Mediterraneanization, the Irish people have undergone a long period of racialization, and religious and racial discrimination, mainly by the British. Its history is marked by emigration waves associated with famines and economic hardship, often making them second-class citizens in the British Empire. Even the Irish have a 'black' identity: according to a widespread popular myth, the 'Black Irish' are descendants of Spanish sailors. |hdl=10316/41783 |hdl-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Tate">{{Cite book |last=Tate |first=Claudia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3U8DwAAQBAJ&dq=%22Black+Irish%22+%22Irish+of+Mediterranean+appearance%22&pg=PA24 |title=Psychoanalysis and Black Novels: Desire and the Protocols of Race |date=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-509683-5 |pages=24 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Pramaggiore">{{cite journal |last1=Pramaggiore |first1=Maria |date=2015 |title=Review: The Black Irish Onscreen: Representing Black and Mixed Race Identities on Irish Film and Television By Zélie Asava |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/f954d0e4d82a358e777af15b4225b115/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=946333 |journal=Estudios Irlandeses |volume=10 |issue= |pages=176–178 |doi= |access-date=8 November 2023 |quote=Fairly late in the book's introduction the author mentions the traditional understanding of the term 'black Irish' as the descendants of the survivors of the wreck of the Spanish Armada in 1588. In an attempt to privilege 'the new Irish' the author misses an opportunity to historicize contemporary ideologies and practices. A concept of black Irishness existed before the twentieth century, prior to the inaugural event that the author points to as a frame for the historical situation of the black Irish̶ the first deportation of a black man in an independent Ireland in 1925.}}</ref> However, no anthropological, historical, or [[Genetic history of the British Isles|genetic research]] supports this story. Some theorists assert that the term was adopted in some cases by Irish- Americans seekingwho wanted to conceal interracial unions with [[African- Americans]], paralleling the phrase "[[Black Dutch (genealogy)|Black Dutch]]" which was also used in the United States to hide racial identity.<ref name="Vande Brake"/><ref name="Estes"/><ref name="Podber"/> Likewise, the concept of "Black Irish" was also used by some [[Aboriginal Australians]] to [[Passing (racial identity)|racially pass]] themselves into [[white Australia|white Australian]] society.<ref name="Hughes"/> In the earlier parts of the 19th century, "Black Irish" was sometimes used in the United States to describe biracial people of African and Irish descent.<ref name="Tate"/><ref name="Pramaggiore"/>

By the 20th century, "Black Irish" had become a [[Performativity|performative]]an identity played out by Irish-AmericansAmerican authors such as [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]] and [[Robert E. Howard]]. In Ireland, in the 21st-century century,Ireland ''Black Irish'' is used primarily to refer to Irish nationals of African descent, and the Americanalternative meaning is not commonly used.<ref name="CSO" />

The primary version of the myth proposes that a strain of Irish people with black hair and dark complexions were the descendants of Spanish sailors shipwrecked during the [[Spanish Armada]] of 1588.<ref name="O'Toole"/><ref name="Pramaggiore"/><ref name="Hughes"/> In reality, of the roughly 5,000 Spanish sailors who were recorded as being wrecked off the coast of Ireland and Scotland, the very few that survived the wrecks were either hunted down and killed by English troops or immediately returned to Spain,<ref>{{cite book |last=Mattingly |first=Garrett |author-link= |date=2005 |title=The Armada |url= |location= |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |page=369 |isbn=9780618565917}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Burnett |first1=Bruce I. |date=July 1988 |title=The Great Enterprise |url=https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1988/july/great-enterprise |journal=Naval History Magazine |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages= |doi= |access-date= |quote=The rest, seeking safe harbor on the wild Irish coast without pilots and charts and sometimes without anchors, were smashed more effectively by the rocks than by the English broadsides. Some Spaniards, no doubt, found refuge amongst fellow Catholics, albeit nowhere near enough to justify the myth of the “Black Irish” being descended from them. Most were simply murdered as they lay exhausted on the beaches or were handed over to English soldiers for almost certain execution.}}</ref> and thus could not have impacted the Irish gene pool in any significant manner.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kilfeather |first=T.P. |author-link= |date=1967 |title=Ireland: Graveyard of the Spanish Armada |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k0J2AAAAIAAJ |location= |publisher=G. P. Putnam's sons |page=63 |isbn= 978-0-900068-43-0|quote=The belief that men of Spanish appearance...inter-married with the Irish cannot stand the test of historical examination.}}</ref>

Some researchers have suggested the concept of "Black Irish" as the descendants of Spanish sailors was created and popularisedpopularized in the 19th and 20th centuries by [[Irish Americans]] in the [[United States]] seekingwho wanted to conceal interracial children produced with [[African Americans]]. Academics researching the multi-racial [[Melungeon]] ethnic identity and other Native American groups in the southern United States found that "Black Irish" was amongst a dozen myths about Spanish sailors or other "dark" European ancestors used to disguise the African heritage of interracial children.<ref name="Vande Brake">{{cite book |last=Vande Brake |first=Katherine |author-link= |date=August 2009 |title=Through the Back Door: Melungeon Literacies and Twenty-first-century Technologies |url= |location= |publisher= Mercer University Press |page= |isbn= |quote=Calling someone "Black Dutch" or "Black Irish" was a way to acknowledge the person's dark skin without insinuating a Negro ancestor}}</ref><ref name="Estes">{{cite journal |last1=Estes |first1=Roberta |date=2010 |title=Revealing American Indian and Minority Heritage Using Y-line, Mitochondrial, Autosomal and X Chromosomal Testing Data Combined with Pedigree Analysis |url=https://dna-explained.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Revealing-American-Indian-Heritage-Pedigree-Analysis.pdf |journal=Journal of Genetic Genealogy |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages= |doi= |access-date= |quote=Any classification other than white meant in terms of social and legal status that these people were lesser citizens. Therefore, Native American or African heritage that was not visually obvious was hidden and sometimes renamed to much less emotionally and socially charged monikers, such as "Black Dutch", "Black Irish" and possibly also Portuguese.}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hirschman |first1=Elizabeth C. |last2=Panther-Yate |first2=Donald |date=2007 |title=Suddenly Melungeon! Reconstructing Consumer Identity Across the Color Line |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1016/S0885-2111(06)11011-X/full/html |journal=Consumer Culture Theory |series=Research in Consumer Behavior |volume=11 |issue= |pages=252 |doi=10.1016/s0885-2111(06)11011-x |isbn=978-0-7623-1446-1 |access-date=8 December 2023 |quote=While some contemporary Melungeons are quite light complexioned, even having blonde or red hair and fair skin, the majority are darker, with what is commonly described as ‘‘olive’’ or ‘‘copper’’ toned skin, brunette or black hair, and dark brown eyes. Ironically, despite having Mediterranean or Middle Eastern physiognomies, many Melungeons grew up confident of their ostensibly Northern or Western European ancestry. This self-deception often originated with parents or grandparents who told the individual that s/he was Scotch–Irish, English, French, and/or German. If challenged by the skeptical child that s/he seemed to be darker than most Scottish or German persons, the parent/grandparent might reply that this was due to some Black Dutch or Black Irish ancestry}}</ref> A primary source told researchers, "They would say they were "Black Dutch" or "Black Irish" or "Black French", or Native American. They’d say they were anything but Melungeon because anything else would be better ... because to be Melungeon was to be discriminated against."<ref name="Podber">{{cite journal |last1=Podber |first1=Jacob J. |date=September 2008 |title=Creating Real and Virtual Communities Among the Melungeons of Appalachia |url=https://dspace.nku.edu/bitstream/handle/11216/1295/Creating.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y |journal=Journal of Kentucky Studies |volume= |issue= |pages= |doi= |access-date=}}</ref>