What’s “Black Irish?”
When the Spanish Armada crashed off the coast of Ireland centuries ago, the Spanish sailors who survived were rescued and taken in by Irish families. Naturally, they settled down and married Irish girls. Their progeny were often dark-skinned and had dark curly hair, and were called affectionately “Black Irish”. (I am descended from these on my mother’s side.)
Nowadays, African-Americans with Irish surnames (which actually came to them from the overseers of the plantations, who were mainly Irish and Scotch-Irish) have also come to be called affectionately “Black Irish”.
Both the Irish and African-Americans have many common threads of tragedy, discrimination, slavery, and matriarchal families, as well as common personality traits,(such as humor and colorful idiomatic speech) running throughout their history. Some say an Irishman is an African-American turned “inside out”. Affectionately.
my grandpa would always say the black irish were called smoked irish