Black Irish – I am sure my mother didn’t know the meaning

I was 15 when my sister, mother and I drove out to relocate my sister to San Diego, California. She was moving in with her boyfriend currently stationed at the naval base.  It was April of 1975.   We encountered a late winter snow storm outside of Albuquerque, NM.  I didn’t know then it snows in New Mexico.   I had to lend my mom money for the hotel room because the hotel didn’t take credit cards. My mother always knew I had a stash of cash. I have always been the saver in my family.

We stayed a few nights with my uncle in Gallup, NM and moved across west to California.  Did we want to stop at see the continental Divide, “No”.  See Death Valley?  Well, we stopped at the hotel, I lost my turquoise ring, the long drive through the desert was enough for me, thank you.

We were apartment hunting with my sister, trying to find a place where she and the boyfriend could live off base.  We found a place and the landlady was asking questions about the boyfriend. I piped up and said he was “Black Irish”.  It was an expression I heard my mother say when describing the boyfriend.  I saw a confused look on the face of the landlady.  I assumed she never heard the expression before and went on to explain. 

That the boyfriend had dark hair and dark eyes and was not blonde or fair or red for that matter.  I think she was still confused with that explanation.  But the expression lingered in my mind for years.  I always assumed that is what Black Irish meant. You had dark hair and eyes vs. blond/red hair, blue/green eyes.  All I could remember from my biology class at that time is Mendel’s pea pod experiment.

I was thumbing through Cyndi’s List this weekend and found an interesting discussion regarding Ethnic Myths.  Cyndi’s list includes an article on the Pennsylvania Dutch for those who didn’t know are actually German. The two links regarding Black Irish make for an interesting read. One author makes his case that Black Irish are not descendents from a shipwrecked Spanish Armada from the 1588 who co-mingled with Irish inhabitants. Irish Central (www.irishcentral.com) has an article on the etymology of “Black Irish”.  The article is called Who Were the Black Irish.

The article starts with a history lesson of various invaders to Ireland.  Then goes on to explain the semantics of Gaelic names as a possible origin to the term Black Irish. Both articles provide an interesting interpretation of the possible origin of the word and its modern usage. There are over 175 comments on the Irish Central with individuals offering their opinion of the meaning to be Black Irish.

Who’s right and who is wrong? Is it a little bit of all theories?  Well, I am going to stick with the modern terminology.  I’m going to stick with one label, “Heinz 57”.  With a few exceptions, most people today are a mixture of many ethnic regions.  My two DNA test results indicate that I have up to 3% Neanderthal DNA in my chromosomes.  My top three ethnicity estimates, in order, are Great Britain, Eastern European and Scandinavia, followed by Italy/Greece (WHAT?), and Ireland.  To add fuel to the Black Irish debate of Spanish Armada survivors co-mingling in Ireland, my DNA results indicate I have less than one percent DNA from the Iberian Peninsula.

Pass the ketchup, please.

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