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I had always been told that the term "Black Irish" describes people who were descended from survivors of the disastrous Spanish Armada, who ended up stranded in Ireland.

However, I have been doing a little research this morning and there is some reason to believe that this is a myth that the English used to demonize the Irish, since the Spanish were considered enemies for so many years.

I also found out that there are people who are called the "Black Dutch" who are believed to have descended from Sephardic Jews who fled to Holland during the Inquisition.

Interestingly, Celts in France also show the same two types...darker-haired "black" types as well as the red-haired, green-eyed variety.

This does not contribute greatly to the origin of the Stone of Scone, but does indicate that using physical characteristics is not really proof of anything.

Has anyone ever taken a small sample of the stone to see where the rock originated? I would imagine that a piece of sandstone could be traced back to its country of origin, given the geological records that are now on computer.

I believe in the Genesis account of the dispersal of the nations following the Tower of Babel and the confounding of the languages as described in Genesis 11. Given that mankind slowly spread across the earth in the centuries following that event, it is likely that while the descendants of Ham migrated to Africa, for the most part, and those of Japheth to Europe, residual populations remained in the Middle East. Thus the Egyptians and the Canaanites, who were Hamitic, and the Persians and the Hyskos, who were Japhetic (Indo-Europeans) were close physical neighbors to the Semitic nations. The Semitic and Indo-European language families are clearly different in vocabulary and grammar, and their sepration occured at the Tower of Babel. The breakdown from the original Indo-European into Germanic, Keltic, Italic, Sanskrit, etc., took place as the various tribes descended from Japheth spread northward, westward, and eastward from the Middle Eastern point of origin. However, the Tower of Babel event and the subsequent dispersion of humanity began well before 2000 BC, the approximate date of the birth of Abraham, the founder of the Jewish nation. By the time the 12 tribes were conquered and expelled from the Holy Land (7th and 6th Centuries BC), the proto-Celts had settled a large portion of Western and Central Europe, with some Celts also living in Turkey and the proto-Germans had established their territory in northern Germany and Scandinavia, with some possibly in Ukraine.