The Black Irish of Érie Descended from Spanish Pirates

About the Book

The Black Irish descended from Pirates: A Memoir of An American Family, The Mitchells is both a social history of Irish immigration and a genealogical study of particular families. Irish Protestants in the South, until the upheaval of World War II, retained a clannish allegiance years after leaving Ireland. The heritage of being a “Black Irishman” was deeply ingrained in the Mitchell family experience; one that resonates in the current generation’s physical appearance and self-identity. It is an open-ended story that may, one day, be resolved by advances in deciphering the human genome.

About the Author

Elizabeth M. Walter, PhD, is professor emeriti of art history and former chair of the Department of Art at the University of North Alabama. The author of “Jay Hambidge and the Development of the Theory of Dynamic Symmetry” and numerous articles, she published her groundbreaking study of “Frank Lloyd Wright in Alabama” on Henry Ford’s scheme to buy Wilson Dam. She received her graduate degrees at the University of Alabama and he University of Georgia. Her mitochondrial DNA testing indicates she is U8ala, subgroup haplogroup R, and her genomic is 2.9 percent Neanderthal ancestry.