No big deal, but the terminology is used in a way I’ve never seen before, and it made me confused.
See, depending on whether you’re in the US, or Ireland, the term “black Irish” has different meanings.
In the US, Irish immigrants used the term to refer to Irish people with dark hair, eyes, and complexion, but that were still not African-American. Part of my family is black Irish in that sense. There’s a lot of myth behind that, with various explanations of how and why that set of features came to be, including spanish settlement, but it wasn’t used for folks with African ancestry.
Over in Ireland, black Irish is essentially the equivalent of African-American, people of African descent that live in Ireland.
Since you’re from the US, it is surprising to see the term used for someone with red hair at all.
Anyway, it’s all good, just means we have some shared ancestry, which is always interesting :)
No big deal, but the terminology is used in a way I’ve never seen before, and it made me confused.
See, depending on whether you’re in the US, or Ireland, the term “black Irish” has different meanings.
In the US, Irish immigrants used the term to refer to Irish people with dark hair, eyes, and complexion, but that were still not African-American. Part of my family is black Irish in that sense. There’s a lot of myth behind that, with various explanations of how and why that set of features came to be, including spanish settlement, but it wasn’t used for folks with African ancestry.
Over in Ireland, black Irish is essentially the equivalent of African-American, people of African descent that live in Ireland.
Since you’re from the US, it is surprising to see the term used for someone with red hair at all.
Anyway, it’s all good, just means we have some shared ancestry, which is always interesting :)