Like many African Americans, I was excited by the possibility of using DNA tests to learn about my cultural roots before they were severed by centuries of slavery, obfuscation and the destruction of records. Today, I’m proud to say that multiple tests have confirmed my roots among ethnic groups living Ghana, Sierra Leone and other countries in West and Central Africa.

But the tests also confirmed the legacy of slavery in quite another way: my family, like most black American families, has not one but several white ancestors – men who took advantage of their access to young enslaved women and, in the process, increased the number of human beings they called property.

“Kiss Me, I’m Irish” took on a whole new meaning for me, when I discovered that I was.

My great-great-great grandfather, Spencer “Plenty” Hughes, was described in the census as a “mulatto”, but his descendants said he was a “big Irishman” who loved to drink and tell jokes. (He was likely a “bright mulatto” – of the same Irish stock as the white Hughes family.) His descendants include my grandmother Hazel, a light-skinned black woman with reddish-brown hair; her own paternal grandmother, Hettie, was the daughter of her slaveholder’s son, Richard Henry Bellamy, who was of mixed English and Irish descent. There’s Irish blood on both sides of my family: it is the largest component of Gonze Lee, my paternal grandfather’s European ancestry, a whopping 14%. The DNA evidence seemingly confirms our family lore that Terrell Mungo and Margaret Pate, my maternal grandparents, were both biracial and the children of their slaveholders in South Carolina.

But the Irish, a group for whom “whiteness” was seriously in doubt until the early 20th century, were not just enslavers; they were also sometimes the enslaved. Irish laborers in many parts of the West Indies and the American South in the 17th-18th centuries found themselves living among enslaved Africans and free people of color. We have records of Irish immigrants living with black families; the art of tap dancing came from a fusion of traditional African/African American dance with Irish jigs; and antebellum America even produced Bishop Healy, the first Catholic bishop of African descent (and the son of an Irish immigrant).

The black-Irish relationship was not without conflicts: enslaved Africans and free people of color were competition for newly-arrived Irish immigrants, and Irish immigrants, though heavily discriminated against in their own right, used the prejudice against blacks to forge their own path to whiteness in antebellum America. Pressed into military service immediately upon arrival to America during the Civil War, Irish men resented being asked to “fight for” blacks – and, from anti-black riots to attendance at minstrel shows, early Irish identity was tainted by a type of racism forged in an attempt to survive. Just as shows like “Copper” and films like “Gangs of New York”, accurately depict, the early relationships between black people and Irish people were complex, creative, and often combative

On my first visit to Ireland in 2010 – before DNA tests confirmed my ancestry – I felt as though I’d somehow returned, and that, despite my phenotype, my blood had a relationship with the Emerald Isle. I loved the food and the people; the country was heartbreakingly beautiful. I semi-secretly hoped that I had a connection to the place, so, whenever I felt comfortable enough to, I intimated I could be part Irish. Eyebrows were raised, but nobody really was surprised, and one lady even gave me a hug and said, “Welcome Home, Love!”.

On Saint Patrick’s Day, I wonder if people will take the time to reflect on the complexity of the Irish-American heritage, which is more than green rivers, green beer and cheap hats made in China covered in green glitter. It is a story of a long and tortured search for American identity, redemption and the fulfillment of a dream to find a home free of oppression. In that, the stories of Irish-Americans and black Americans aren’t that different. If you see me today and you’re Irish of any color, I hope you’ll be as open as the lady in the market in Dublin and welcome me home.