<div style="text-align:center;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><font>==============================</font><font>=======================<br> L O W L A N D S - L - 10 June 2012 - Volume 06<br><a href="mailto:lowlands.list@gmail.com" target="_blank">lowlands.list@gmail.com</a>
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<p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"><font>From: </font><span class="gI"><span class="gD">Mark and Ruth Dreyer</span> <span class="go"><a href="mailto:mrdreyer@telkomsa.net">mrdreyer@telkomsa.net</a></span></span><font><br>
Subject: </font><span class="gI">LL-L "History" 2012.06.10 (02) [EN]</span></p><p style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif" class="MsoNormal"><br></p><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Dear Tomas:</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Subject: LL-L "History"</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">You ask:</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><div class="im"> Can anyone shed light on the term
"Black Irish"?<br></div>Ive read of them a lot, with different theories, but none
definitive...</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> This is what I can offer from our
family history, but I couldn't tell if definitive comes into it...</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">We associate the term with one of three racial types most
typical of the Irish, but in no case does it apply to one of darker
complexion.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> Pale Irish are noted as least typical,
but that might only apply to the Gaeltecht of Old around Ballyhaunes in County
Mayo, where my Grandmother hailed from. It is darkly suggested they have Viking
blood, & they are typically blond with blue eyes.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> Then there are the Red Irish. This may
have more to do with complexion for they are ruddy & inclined to
freckles, but such are expected to have a strong hereditary inclination to
red hair (actually chestnut) & green eyes.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> The Black Irish have a pale complexion
with good colour (they have a blush to their cheeks & red lips) but long,
straight & fine jet-black hair & grey eyes. If I'm not wrong, Diedre of
the Sorrows would be such a one.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> There is another type associated with
the Western Islands & adjacent coasts & they are as pale as the rest,
but their hair is supposed to be notably short & to be or go grey from early
youth, & their eyes are usually black. They are long of body & short of
limb & great singers, & reputedly they can't sleep out of the sound of
water, whatever that means. There is an occasional hereditary problem with
the slight hypertrophy of the flesh of the soles of their feet & the palms
of their hands, & it can interfere with finer hand-work, but hand-lotion
helps. Grandmother supposed with a chuckle there might be selkie blood in her.
But she was not 'Black Irish'.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> I read elsewhere that the Pale
Irish are associated with the Milesians, Mile Espano's People, the Red Irish
with the Fir Bolg, Fir Gaeloin & Fir Domnann, & the Black Irish, the
Oldest of the native races, with the People of Nemed.</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">All Yrs,</div>
<div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Mark Dreyer.</div><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"></span><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">
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