My uncle always said we were black Irish which to him meant Scots-Irish. Julia >From: James Wiley <jrwiley@raex.com> >To: OHBELMON-L@rootsweb.com >Subject: [OHBELMON-L] Re: Our Irish Ancestors >Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 11:20:33 -0500 > > Subject: [OHBELMON-L] Black irish > >"… found this on the internet.....seems to indicate that the term >Black Irsih means quite different things to different people, and >has no actual definition; The Black Irish seem to be mainly a >U.S. thing. The Irish natives I've heard from say the term is new >to them." > > >First, my apologies to anyone whose time I waste with this >discussion, but I rise to the occasion because the general >related topic has also arisen on another genealogy list, and as >with that list I hope I might add something useful to the >discussion and to genealogy in general, possibly fanciful tales >and ship wrecked Spaniards not excluded, of course. > > >From prewritten history of the British Isles, before even >Geoffery of Monmouth, something of a historian in loose terms, >from whom Shakespeare stole his theme for one of his better >plays, the mythos and actual history of the peoples of the Isles >is colored (if you will) with many references to black or dark >skinned Britons. > >Very briefly, it seems there have been dark complexioned people >in the Isles for quite some time. The story of Tristan and >Isolda, or ol' Geoffrey's version of the tale possibly was taken >from oral traditions of a dark skinned princess (Isolt the Fair, >or Isolt of the Fair Hands). That is, the Isles' history is >replete with references to darker complexioned peoples, long >before the demise of the Spanish Armada. In tales of King Arthur >legends, Iseult was wife of King Mark, with more variances on the >tales. Prehistoric people migrating in reed boats from north >Africa is more likely a probability than a fictional tale of >operas. > >So - from times before written history of the Isles, the notion >of "different" people have fascinated our ancestors of the area. >Purity of races or groups of people is the real fiction. From >blue faced Picts, who merged with the Scots, to red-haired >descendants of Celts and Scandinavian invaders, we're quite a >"colorful" group, we Britons and Britain's descendants. > >I have no idea if this adds anything to the discussions or not. >But when you get stumped for finding your ancestors' ancestors, >reading old, even ancient history is pretty fun sometimes. > >jim > _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.