Oh, good. You are all back! Out of all the expressions describing the Irish the one my family (those born in Ireland) hated the most was shanty Irish. And I will not repeat what they said about it. And.........my sister has been described as Black Irish. She has dark, dark brown hair (or rather, she used to but don't tell her I said that) and olive skin. She has always tanned just beautifully. Whereas I have the typical pale, pale skin and HAD dark blond hair. Never could last longer than 15 minutes in the sun. But I also will probably end up with great skin when I am old, old mainly because I cannot spend a lot of time sunbathing, even with these newfangled sun screens. Of course, it won't matter then. Actually, it doesn't matter now................ Monica ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.