Black Irish (folklore)

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-coloured hair, blue or dark eyes, or otherwise dark colouring. This meaning is not used in modern Ireland, where "Black Irish" refers to Irish people of African descent.

The first 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. However, no anthropological, historical, or genetic research supports this story. Some theorists assert that the term was adopted in some cases by Irish-Americans seeking to conceal interracial unions with African-Americans, paralleling the phrase "Black Dutch" which was also used in the United States to hide racial identity. Likewise, the concept of "Black Irish" was also used by some Aboriginal Australians to racially pass themselves into white Australian society. 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.

By the 20th century, "Black Irish" had become a performative identity played out by Irish-Americans authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald and Robert E. Howard. In Ireland, in the 21st century, Black Irish is used primarily to refer to Irish nationals of African descent, and the American meaning is rarely used.

Spanish origin myth
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. 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, and thus could not have impacted the Irish gene pool in any significant manner.

In 1912, Irish author James Joyce asserted a different version of the myth, suggesting in an article that the residents of Galway were of "the true Spanish type" owing to their interaction and trade with the Spanish in the medieval era.

Genetic studies
Two genetic studies conducted in the 2010s found little if any Spanish traces in Irish DNA, with population geneticist Dan Bradley of Trinity College Dublin rejecting the Spanish origin myth.

Potential purposes of the myth
Some researchers have suggested the concept of "Black Irish" as the descendants of Spanish sailors was created and popularised in the 19th and 20th centuries by Irish Americans in the United States seeking 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. 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."

In the early to mid-20th century, the myth of the 'Black Irish' was used occasionally by Aboriginal Australians to racially pass themselves into white Australian society.

Cultural use of the term
The academic Christopher Dowd describes the Black Irish identity as being "performed" by early 20th-century Irish-American authors such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, James T. Farrell, Margaret Mitchell, and Robert E. Howard. These authors "became Irish in the same way that all Irish Americans do—by ascribing certain traits to an imagined Irish community", popularising, exploring, and expanding upon the myth of the 'Black Irish' in their writings.

Beyond the person's appearance, the 'Black Irish' stereotype (sometimes used pejoratively) suggested that the person was moody and dangerous, and drank heavily.

Modern use of the term
In the 1950s, Malcolm X of the Nation of Islam would occasionally assert, alongside claiming Italians were descended from Carthaginian Africans and the Spanish were descended from the Moors, that the Irish were also of Black descent by invoking the 'Black Irish' myth.

In Ireland, in the 21st century, Black Irish is now more commonly used to refer to Irish nationals of African descent.