http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/18/1/50.pdf

The last two pages talk about correlation and its inheritance. Study was done (probably awhile ago) on U of Wisc students & families: 71 families, 401 individuals. Says dark hair and light eyes isn't uncommon, but light hair and dark eyes is rare (they didn't find any).

Sherilyn Fenn is only 1/4 Irish, and 1/4 of French, Italian, and Hungarian. So much for being able to use her as an example of hot "dark Irish" girls!

Posted by: agnostic | September 21, 2007 12:24 PM

And deceptive Irish last names like Flynn which mask enormous non-Irish ancestry. Did Irish males outmarry more than females in the US, and thus pass on their names more? Abroad, Irish guys tend to be quite successful with the ladies, the gift of the gab and all that, so this is at least plausible.

Posted by: cuchulkhan | September 21, 2007 2:26 PM

From high school I seem to recall a black girl who had fairly dark skin, yet had very green eyes. I always assumed that she had a distant white ancestor and inherited the green eye gene (maybe ASPM?). I did wonder at the time if the green eye genes were positively selected. Her eyes were striking.

Posted by: President Barbicane | September 21, 2007 11:31 PM

There's a serious complication with this sort of research in, as often hair and eye color(in populations where this is variable) are -not- static throughout the life. Many whites are born blond, and their hair darkens as they get towards adulthood. So a blond haired blue-eyed kid may turn into a brown-haired blue-eyed adult. I've also heard anecdotally(no idea of truth) of a rare Slavic(?) trait where dark hair in childhood turns red in adulthood. Some hair sunbleaches, and so is different colors seasonally. Chemotherapy can change hair texture and color. Not to mention normal greying. Eye color can change too, naturally or otherwise. There's a glaucoma drug that turns eyes brown...

There's a reason these traits haven't been fully figured out yet...they give people headaches.

Posted by: Neziha | September 22, 2007 1:05 AM

What gene is responsible for the metallic skin in the video? That is exotic.

Posted by: Nina P | September 22, 2007 12:39 PM

Re: Turks, I've only seen a very biased sample -- the uber-elite from Istanbul who attended an elite US college -- but light hair among them seemed about as common as among other European Mediterranean areas. Their facial features are also garden variety Mediterranean, not Central Asian (I only saw on girl who looked Central Asian). I'm trying not to go off on a tangent about how stunning these elite Turkish girls are...

Not knowing much Turkish history, I'd guess that the elite there historically weren't influenced that much genetically by the Turkic groups, but adopted their culture, language, etc., somewhat like the Hungarians did with the Magyars.

Posted by: agnostic | September 23, 2007 1:20 PM

I have never seen numbers to back this up but it seams to my biased eyes that the combination of blue eyes and black hair is quite common in the West of Ireland. I am a example of it myself and growing up there i knew lots of people with the same combination, its not the result of a admixture of different nationalities as the region has seen little immigration up until the last few years.

Posted by: Keith | September 23, 2007 2:17 PM

razib said:

"Did Irish males outmarry more than females in the US, and thus pass on their names more?

"i think they were was some sex bias toward males in the immigrant stream. so likely?"

Razib,

The Irish immigration overall had more women than men in it (http://politics.as.nyu.edu/docs/IO/4600/kaminsky_thesis.pdf) and in comparison to many other immigrant groups the Irish were closer to 50/50. This is fairly well known amongst the historians of Irish immigration (at least they taught that to me) and I think it is born out by the immigration records.

As for "dark haired blue eyed Irish beauties", certain parts of Ireland, such as the tip of the Dingle peninsula (a rural and until recently isolated area), abound with them.

Posted by: mikeyes | September 24, 2007 4:01 PM

I think that even in the famine years there were at least 35% women in the mix. Most other immigrant populations had a preponderance of men. You are correct in saying that a large number of Irish women came over in the later years of the immigration to the states (which probably ended in numbers when they changed the laws 40 or so years ago), but there were significant numbers of women in the famine years too. (My family being a good example of this - all of the original immigrant men married immigrant Irish women. But that is not scientific proof, I grant.)

I suspect that the main reason that Irish women married Italian men (in the absence of Irish men) is that the church mandated that you marry within the fold and the only place to meet Catholic men would have been in church. A good reason to go to church.

Posted by: Mikeyes | September 25, 2007 2:01 PM

I have black hair and blue eyes, my heritage is mostly english but i'm quarter Italian,but i think i got my dark hair and light eyes from my fathers side, which is mostly english...though there could be a little Irish if you go way back.

I also have 2 cousins on my fathers side..sisters..one has dark hair and blue eyes and the other has blonde hair and brown eyes, their of german ancestry on their fathers side.

Posted by: mardi | February 27, 2008 3:33 AM