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Black hair is not common at all in Ireland and UK.
Population studies done in the past in Ireland have shown that less than 3% of Irish people have black hair, and less than 0.5% have brown eyes. The vast majority of Irish people actually have hair ranging from blond to brown, and have blue or blue-grey eyes. There have been no recent studies done on the colouring of the Irish people. That 0.5% would be pure brown eyes. There are Irish with mixed dark and light eyes.
So no black hair is not common.
For me Roy keane has black hair, and there are tons and tons of people like that in Ireland and the UK.
Black hair/Brown Eyes are uncommon among indigenous people in northern europe, not that they do not exist, but they are a small minority. I guess most people would assume anyone with black hair/brown eyes must be from southern europe or have any sort of foreign admixture. The only place where black hair is common (in Northern/Northwest europe) is Ireland, and the UK, although Its usually paired with light eyes rather than brown.
It's not what you define as black hair, it's what is universally known as black hair. Both black hair and brown eyes are not in the majority of Northern and Western European populations as a whole. Dark brown or deep brown hair seem to be the most common colour for very dark hair in those regions, but not black. The British Isles are no exception to the rule, just that traditionally in the western parts of the U.K. and Ireland, there are more folks with dark brown hair than in the eastern parts. What is surprising is that red-haired people like myself are also more common in those same areas than in the eastern parts. [/quote]
A french published study on hair color in May 2005 done by Veronique Battaille and Collins shows the ratio of black hair(Cheveux Noirs) in the following European Union member nations. These obviously do not include non-indigenous Europeans:
Belgique (Belgium) : 5.5%
France :4.7%
Suede (Sweden) : 3.1%
Pays Bas (Netherlands) : 2.3%
Royaume-Uni (U.K.) : 3.1%
Thus there seem to be an exaggeration on your part as well as your twin "Don". The difference is that there would be more dark brown shades in the U.K. than in Sweden for example, but that doesn't put them on a Southern European level. Most people in the U.K. as in the rest of Northern Europe have blonde to brown hair anyway.
For me Roy keane has black hair, and there are tons and tons of people like that in Ireland and the UK.
The Scottish and Irish are the palest Europeans, due to the fact that they have as a whole the highest ratio of redhead genes which are responsible for lowering tanning ability and increase skin cancer risks . The V60L allele responsible for red hair, also played a major role in the mutation of skin lightening of humans when they came out of Africa to settle in Europe according to very recent study done in Spain. This allele found throughout Europe is most frequent in the British Isles populations whether they have dark hair as Roy keane and red hair as this Irish man, they may as well be carriers of it.
Black hair is quite common in southern and western shores of europe. Its the most common in greece, portugal, spain, italy, deep south france. France, Ireland and Britain are also packed with many natives with either very dark brown or black hair. So its pretty common in all the balkan nations. Its not very extremely common but neither a rarity in places such as southern germany, most of belgium, austria, poland, czech.specially hungary(many black haired hungarians).
Primitive Europeans, before the arrival of Indoeuropeans, had black and wavy hair, just like Otzi, they are the so-called "Alpines". Hitler himself was Alpine. They can be found in large numbers all around Western Europe. I'd say that black and brown hair are predominant in Western Europe.
The universal hair color of Europeans is brown from very light to very dark brown hair, not black. Northern Europe(especially Scandinavia and Finland) has the lowest ratio of pure black hair statistically, while other regions Central and Eastern Europe have even slightly more. Southern Europe which is much darker, would naturally have higher ratios. For example when comparing four European countries Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Italy, black hair as a whole was commonest among the Portuguese, then Italians, then Poles and finally the Irish. On the other hand a person who's black-haired, with a pale white/freckled-skin and blue/green eyes were found to be more common among the Irish, then Poles than among the Portuguese/Italians. [/quote]
The universal hair color of Europeans is brown from very light to very dark brown hair, not black. Northern Europe(especially Scandinavia and Finland) has the lowest ratio of pure black hair statistically, while other regions Central and Eastern Europe have even slightly more. Southern Europe which is much darker, would naturally have higher ratios. For example when comparing four European countries Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Italy, black hair as a whole was commonest among the Portuguese, then Italians, then Poles and finally the Irish. On the other hand a person who's black-haired, with a pale white/freckled-skin and blue/green eyes were found to be more common among the Irish, then Poles than among the Portuguese/Italians.
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I agree with most of this.
But I would say for sure that Iberians have the highest amount of black haired people along with Greeks out of Europe.
Not only that but also the darkest skin tones from what I have seen.
To add also I seen more exotic/extra European Meds in Iberia and most of Greece than I have seen even in most of Italy.
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