Spanish Armada
The physical traits of the black Irish are sometimes thought to have been the result of an Iberian admixture originating with survivors of the Spanish Armada. Most Armada survivors were killed on the beaches, and many of the remnants eventually escaped from Ireland, but a group of Spanish soldiers ended up serving as armed retainers to the Irish chiefs Brian O'Rourke, Sorley Boy MacDonnell and Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone.
The genetic evidence is that the survivors of the Spanish Armada probably left no legacy, as the Irish have only minute amounts of Neolithic Italic Y chromosome genetic markers, such as G and J, which are present in trace levels throughout Spain. These results may be spurious as the Atlantic Modal Haplotype R1b is present in most Western European males including most Spanish and Irish males.
Read more about this topic: Black Irish, Common Attributions
Famous quotes containing the word spanish:
“In French literature, you can choose “à la carte”; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.”
—José Bergamín (1895–1983)