The Black Irish Have DNA That Changes Everything We Know About Ireland

The Black Irish Have DNA That Changes Everything We Know About Ireland The dark-featured people of western Ireland have been called the Black Irish for generations, jet black hair, pale skin, eyes that look more Mediterranean than Atlantic, and the explanation passed down for just as long was the romantic one about Spanish Armada sailors washing ashore in 1588 and staying. Geneticists have now proven that story is a complete myth and the historical record backs them up entirely. Of the Spanish sailors who actually made it ashore alive most were hunted down, robbed, and executed on the orders of the English crown, and there are no Spanish surnames anywhere in Irish birth records from the late sixteenth century. What the DNA actually reveals about those dark features is something far older and far more extraordinary than a shipwreck story. They are not foreign at all. They are the oldest inheritance on the island, tracing back to a population that arrived in Ireland thousands of years before anyone else and whose story has been hiding in plain sight under a legend that was always too good to be true. This one genuinely surprised me and I think it will do the same for anyone who grew up hearing the Armada story as family history.