Let’s Dispel the “Black Irish” Myth for Good

“Black Irish” means that someone has “Moorish,” Iberian, Spanish, or North African ancestry. It has nothing to do with a shipwreck.

There were two massive waves of migration from the aforementioned regions due to religious crusades: the first in the 900s and second in the 1300s lasting through the 1500s. Both migrations predate the supposed Armada shipwreck of the 1580s.

The complex genetic ancestry of “Black Irish” can differ significantly from Anglo-Irish and even northern Celtic populations due to the Roman Empire’s destruction and population displacement in the east/south and the Nordic colonization taking place across the north/west. Some Irish families (who aren’t recent immigrants) have Gael/Celtic ancestry, some have Anglo/Nordic or Austrian/German, and others have North African/Spanish/Iberian.

“Black Irish” does also refer to phenotypic characteristics like dark hair, browner skin, brown eyes, etc. but is more a substitute for “Moor” since that term fell out of fashion or was considered an insult in Ireland, US, Canada, Spain, etc. around the 1800s unless someone was referring to architecture.

Another massive difference between “Black Irish” and Anglo/Scots-Irish families is how our ancestors got to the US and why. Most people think of New York and Ellis Island or indentured servants, especially maids, when they think of historical Irish immigrants, but the “Black Irish” families overwhelmingly came through New Orleans and were brought as farm laborers from tobacco/sugarcane plantations in the Caribbean. This is another reason “Black” is used for our ancestors–they worked fields with enslaved African & Indigenous people and were property of the British colonizers.

Flogging Molly’s “Tobacco Island” tells this story.

My Irish ancestors came through New Orleans and escaped servitude by marrying into Mvskoke nation in Alabama. We have no Austrian, Nordic, or Anglo heritage, but we have relatives from Spain, some of whom were taken to South America instead. This is how I am related to Che Guevara–he’s a cousin. This is why my family is still in the South, still farming, and still poor.

Please stop spreading lies about this topic whether it’s positive or negative. If you don’t know, that’s okay. But y’all have to stop taking memes and social media posts as gospel or peer-reviewed research. And yes, I realize the irony.