Thanks for this fascinating post. There is much debate over the original meaning of the term black Irish. Of which you can incarnate into any body next time around. The truth is African-American is not your true nationality. Even if an Irish woman somehow obtained her freedom, her kids would remain slaves of her master. These new mulatto slaves brought a higher price than Irish livestock and, likewise, enabled the settlers to save money rather than purchase new African slaves. However, conflating the Scot-Irish with those who were the predominant focal point of British intolerance: Irish-Catholics (to include any and all Presbyterians and Dissenters among them however small a minority), as the focus of this article however factual is misdirected just as well. If this is the case, contrary to what may often be thought (that the term refers to an Irish person with dark skin, hair, and complexion), the label is actually a reference to said invaders intentions, all those centuries ago. So what is it that makes all so called White skinned folks exactly like one another? The Europeans did not enslave Africans, they did not have to, Africans were already enslaved (they were prisoners of war) by more powerful Africans. Ciarn ( Irish spelling) or Ciaran ( Scottish Gaelic spelling) [2] [3] is a traditionally male given name of Irish origin. A blog to follow. Another name, OGallchobhair, which is the Irish version of the popular name Gallagher, means foreign help. From what I understand, the African slaves didnt have or use last names during that time period. Africa was named after a so-called white man by the name of Scipio Africanus. One of the most famous Wilsons is actor Owen Wilson, as well as 28th president of the United States Woodrow Wilson. Quite interesting piece of history here I just had to share with all of you. Did you assume the Irish always spoke English? Period. McCarthy 14. Its now being used to paint the picture of white persecution and victimization and to deny historic institution racism in the US. My mother in law was called Shanks. Where are the runaway slave notices posted for Irish slaves (as there were for black slaves)? However, Black slaves were oppressed intellectually, religiously and physically if they attempted to escape or did anything wrong. Yet, let me put it this way, why does it seem like every black person wants to deny irish history? Thank you. A quick review of Irish history reveals that the island was. In fact, many Norman invasion families grew to amend their family names (surnames) to reflect this. It doesnt matter how well you claim they were treated nor what advantage you say they had by the color of their skin. By the time we reach the 1600s the non roman Europeans have been assimilated into a romanic style world where most are commonly white (although this seemed to exclude the irish who were treated very badly and if they werent forced into servitude died of starvation or spent their lives as serfs). Excellent writing and a great read. The Celts arrived on the island about the year 500 B.C. A quick review of Irish history reveals that the island was subject to a number of influxes of foreign people. Some say they came from the Spanish Armada. Donohue Irish. Kelly (46480) 3. How would the Irish name get passed down, if the Irish parent was the mother. Wealthy irish were Protestants who were placed there by England to control and rule the Native population. Thus, Irish moms, even with this new found emancipation, would seldom abandon their kids and would remain in servitude. Irish actress Katie McGrath is one of the most famous McGraths. (no scotch-irish has no irish blood in them at all,they are descendants of Scotland and England whom were given land in Northern Ireland by the English crown..they kicked out and burnt down real irish villages to establish their land in the north with the backing, again of the crown!!!!! So whats my point; well its not to minimize the history of Black slaves. I wonder if the Irish will be told to get over it already the same way African Americans and Canadians are told. The phrase "Black Irish" has been in use for hundreds of years, and several brands of Irish whiskey. I would love to know more, this has opened a window in my life. Oh and as part of an undergraduate class on American History of Business, I spent a significant portion of that class looking at actual microfilm of ads for at first, RUNAWAY INDENTURED SERVANTS in the USA and had to evaluate what changed in those ads for runaways as the business of getting help changed from INDENTURED temporary workers to ENSLAVED PROPERTY owned by those placing ads. 10. The Kelley family name was found in the USA, the UK, Canada, and Scotland between 1840 and 1920. The term "Black Irish" has been in circulation among Irish emigrants and their descendants for centuries. I think it was disingenuous to tell their story by minimizing the horrors experienced by African slaves. [8]The Black Male Incarceration Problem is Real and Catastrophic Huffington Post. Indentured servitude was a colonial innovation that enabled many to emigrate to the New World while providing a cheap and white labour force for planters and merchants to exploit. It is possible that the term "Black Irish" may have referred to some of these immigrant groups as a way of distinguishing them from the "Gaels," the people of ultimately Celtic origin. Some of that comes from atrocities visited upon African Americans during the 19th and 20th centuries such as the union riots that rocked many northern urban centers. This Irish surname is of a prominent Derry sept. Its origin can be traced back to Mac Giolla osa, meaning "son of the devotee of Jesus". Instead the only thing of Ireland you learn is that Dublin is its capital.. Family of three here by underground railroad. Read up on the potato famine. The English masters quickly began breeding the Irish women for both their own personal pleasure and for greater profit. Slavery is not the problem we have to endure. My ancestors were lucky to survive this part of history. According to Antonio Moore in his Huffington Post article, there are more African American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations in India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined. There are only 19 million African American males in the United States, collectively these countries represent over 1.6 billion people. Physical race traits such as skin color were used much later as a justification for slavery, not a motivation to start it. The Vikings bestowed upon themselves the title of the dark invaders or black foreigners. And they did this systemically and repeatedly. Irish family names can tell stories, too. One of the most famous McLoughlins is author and television presenter Coleen Rooney (neMcLoughlin). [] Source: How Blacks have Irish Last Names []. A brief history the movements of Celts across Europe. Although there were Irish Pirates who participated in the slave trade on behalf of France, they did not discriminate and would take Irish or African slaves to sell. Black Name Meaning English and Scottish: chiefly from Middle English blak (e) 'black' (Old English blc blaca) a nickname given from the earliest times to a swarthy or dark-haired man. If youd like to learn more about my opinions on indentured servants Ive provided some explanation and sources on this tread in several replies too. I am a Kyle from Scotland I am scotch-Irish they were indentured servants and free men. Last name: Duffy. American football quarterback Tom Brady is the most famous person with the name Brady. Who were you responding to? And you never were shipped anywhere. Walsh 5. Notable OSheas include actor Milo OShea and singer-songwriter Mark OShea. Bear in mind black African slaves had the stigma of being likened to animals, mentally backwards and being treated as savage- Which was part of the propaganda system to justify black Africans being enslaved. Lynch 18. 'Black Irish' is often a description of people of Irish origin who had dark features, black hair, dark complexion and eyes. & why St.Patricks day is arguably one of the most celebrated holidays on the island. Yet, as a subject of historical discussion, it is almost never referred to in Ireland. .Ireland Scotland Wales ..even babies. That is why African Americans carry Irish surnames today. To keep it going. The way you glossed over this with comments like The settlers began to breed Irish women and girls with African men, as if the African men (and women and children) werent also being raped, and bred with each other and Irish people and slave owners. we live beside the english and have been treated badly for a long time. Over the centuries, Ireland has seen much change, with invasion by the Anglo-Normans in the 12th century, followed by British colonisation in the 16th/17th century moments which significantly shaped our history. The subject of Irish slavery is not spoken about too much. Irish were indentured servants, never slaves. My Uncle Lon, born in the U.S. was shot in the head by the KKK in Sudbury Massachusetts back in the twenties. Vikings had plenty through their bloody history and called them thralls. Do you still have your list of sources? So with that in mind I guess history allready was rewritten in favour of the British Moore 21. After the Armada of 1588, Spanish soldiers married Irish women and integrated into society. Also Indians are not Asians either. One generation after another. This led to a helpless population of homeless women and children. They include Ardagh, Athy, Bray, Kelly, Sutton, and a few others. The Irish landowners where Protestant and therefore considered British. It continues in use. American soccer player Brian Mullan is one of the most famous people with the surname Mullan. who wants to admit that, its not something to be proud ofin fact irish people when they arrived as immigrants in the late 1800s ..after the irish slavery of the 1600s in New England and Virginia, South Carolina,etc.they were given guns to go fight a war right after they landed, literally!!!!! The Norman invasions of 1170 and 1172 led by Strongbow saw yet another wave of immigrants settle in the country, many of whom fiercely resisted English dominance of the island in the centuries that followed. Wow! naturally, that population mixed in with the newly arrive slave blacks as well as the indigenous blacks. Communicating with an African would have been a completely different matter, and names would have been unpronounceable and incomprehensible to any white slave owner. I agree. Though slavery did and still occurs worldwide, chattel slavery was an American created tradition whereby the condition of the mother indicated whether or not a child was born free or enslaved. The term cracker refers to a poor white overseer. Chattel is another form, but we dont call it chattel servitude, on the other hand slavery and servitude has been used interchangeably with indentured, mostly semantics in regards to an individual vs a people. Although they did suffer as the Africans, they were also afforded certain privileges not afforded to African slaves. Others you may not be as familiar with outside of Ireland are Whelan ( Faolin in Gaelic) and OKeeffe ( Caoimh in Gaelic). Many of the invaders' families took Gaelic names that utilized these two descriptive words. From there I started seeing more videos and posts speaking on Irish slavery. Whats your point? But even also his own people as a mere result of the kind of things that happen when the wicked are in rule? Murphy 2. As things evolved though the change from indentured to enslaved came in a big way because of the darker skin tone making it easier to identify runaways and the popularity of black Africans entering a lifetime period of slavery is why indentured servitude was replaced with full on actual slavery. I enjoy being educated, there is so much to learn that I wish our young people were taught, so they would love instead of hating each other. Black Irish Books, publishing house of American author Steven Pressfield. Really good point. Both explanations for why blacks have Irish last names are only partially true. My ancestors great great great great great grandparents, one French, one black, moved to new Orleans together (after his wife died) and owned slaves. I assumed it had transferred from plantation owner to slave but instead it seems like it transferred from Irish slave to African slave. Stick to your own life, quit looking for your next cause celeb. Daly 25. ("Defeat of the Spanish Armada", painted by Philip James de Loutherbourg). But you lost me where you said Irish slaves were treated worse than African slaves. Other theories suggest that the term Black Irish results from Irish immigrants. Spreading these values will end modern slavery, and help us make the entire history of slavery a thing of the past. Get your heads out of your collective asses and out of all those others. You see Irish people as part of your oppressors because they have the same skin colour, and you resort to the exact racial slurs and derogatory comments that the white English used against them the same white English that oppressed YOUR ancestors. I dont care what race you are, if you want to commit crime be ready to do the time and stop crying that you got caught and the other criminals got away. Much of their strange language is left over from the Gaelic that once was spoken widely in those hills. FYI: Themselves need not be hyphenated by the way just saying. One issue was the Federal Government vs Individual States rights. it made things a whole lot easier to change their names. You dont have to accept their politics any more than you should be insisting on your own when interrupting the past. This was a passage from the book noted above. Did irish people have it worse than blacks??? The 1625 Proclamation gave the order for Irish political prisoners to be shipped off and sold to the plantation owners in the West Indies. This has already been disproven. Thanks for sharing. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/us/irish-slaves-myth.amp.html, My last name is Doyle since I been on Facebook Ive learned there is alot of people in Jamaica with last name as mine I am in Chicago and its alot of us scattered through the city but it very nice to know we are Doyles all over the world beautiful black people. The Irish were treated as less of a person than blacks, maybe not worthy of the slave owners name! Irish was not even a nationality at the time Catholic hovel living tenant farmers who couldnt vote, couldnt hold office, were taxed for their religious beliefs, couldnt pass the land to their children, couldnt learn in Catholic schools, had their language officially prohibited, subsisted on the potato, and were largely ignored when they were starving to death by their ruling government (Britain), evicted from their homes, sent off to die in the workhouses of Ireland, women shipped out in the scheme of assisted emigration, did I forget something? Captured irish were SLAVES, and nothing but slaves, no matter how these hysterical (fake) leftists are trying to prove otherwise. Regarding #3 who was making a dare? That has not changed and the enslavement of the poor is as relevant today as it was at any other time in history. African tribes were happy to take slaves during wars, and more than happy to sell them on to arab and european traders. The fact that you refer to them as settlers is disturbing. This is further evidence that despite the evil of Irish slavery, Irish slaves were strangely still seen as human. Are the Australian Aborigines to be categorized in this same way although, willingly or unwillingly, they didnt participate in the same slave trade and share no (at least within the past several thousand years) common history with the African Blacks? Sometime in the 17th century after the battle of Kinsale in County Cork, in Ireland which took place between 1601 -1602, the English was faced with the huge problem of looking after 30,000 men taken as Prisoners-of War. The word 'Cearmaid' comes from Old Irish and is probably a combination of 'ciar' (black) and 'madra' (dog), thus meaning a 'black dog.' 23. Gaelic would not have been understood any more than African languages in the new world. The most prominent O'Conors were the Connacht clan of O'Conor . If they committed a crime that warranted jail time, they deserved the sentence. They were INDENTURED SERVANTS as were the very first Africans brought to the colonies that became the USA which meant 1) they entered a voluntary agreement to exchange their time for passage to the USA or for some type of apprenticeship or training, 2) after a period of time their SERVICE ended usually about 7 years. Sure the law condemned them, but do they have any less right to their heritage than a White person? Once they were accepted as white around the Depression, they quickly became as racist as any other white person during that time and hurriedly left the neighborhoods they were living in with Blacks. As I said an Irish female slave mating with an African slave could not transfer his last name because it was the name of a white owner, if an Irish male slave mated with an African slave she would not get his slave name, it would be the property of the white owner, riddle us this??? And dont realise you are all from the one race- the human race. Slaves were never considered to be humans, but rather, chattel, and were subject to the whoms of their masters. Murray 19. i.e. We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously, How to plan a trip to Ireland (in 9 steps), Irish boy names that nobody can pronounce. One of the most famous people with the name Campbell is model and actress Naomi Campbell. We got our hands on slave ledgers. Moonshine? My last name is Shanks n I just learned from my dad that iam part Irish. They have suffered nothing but a lack of potatoes and cabbages. OBrien has been a prominent surname in Ireland for centuries. So, to put the record straight, find out below about the Black Irish. Likewise, what makes all Blacks the same? The writer of this article conflates two different things geographical/national origin and skin colour/illusionary race category. Thats what the bulk of my Irish ancestors really were: Scottish, English, Cornish, etc. Keir. Quinn 20. Then, for many of the worlds most powerful and influential nations of the time, this is where slavery was put to an end. Maine had the highest population of Blake families in 1840. However Middle English blac also meant 'pale wan' a reflex of Old English blc 'pale white' with a shortened vowel. At what point did marrying an Irish person stop being illegal and considered bestiality? This is a good example of the saying this is a load of _______ (insert rude word or expletive). Second, there was intermarriage in the caribbean with descendents from the cromwellian slave trade of the Irish and African slaves. It derives from the Gaelic word Ciarn, ciar meaning black, and -an being a diminutive suffix. According to reports from the Central Statistics Office, Murphy is the most popular last name in Ireland. It seems more likely that "Black Irish" is a descriptive term rather than an inherited characteristic that has been applied to various categories of Irish people over the centuries. a male black slave cannot transfer an Irish last name.so it would have had to be a male Irish slave mating with an African slave women who would not have been the owner of the slave child , it would have to have the name of the white owner, so riddle us that?? Black Irish Elm, wych elm cultivar originally discovered in Ireland. The Irish may have been treated like shit way back when, but nobody sold even one of them. Irish heritage at this point is one of many battles won and lost.