Blood of the Irish: DNA Proves Ancestry of the People of Ireland

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[Renfield]

Blood of the Irish

The Blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history many Irish people were taught at school is the history of the Irish as a Celtic race, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that ...

Research done into the DNA of Irish males has shown that the old Anthropological attempts to define 'Irish' have been misguided. As late as the 1950s researchers were busy collecting data among Irish people such as hair colour and height, in order to categorise them as a 'race' and define them as different to the British. In fact British and Irish people are closely related in their ancestry.

Research into Irish DNA and ancestry has revealed close links with Scotland stretching back to before the Ulster Planation of the early 1600s. But the closest relatives to the Irish in DNA terms are actually from somewhere else entirely!

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Medieval map of Ireland, showing Irish tribes.

Irish origin myths confirmed by modern scientific evidence

One of the oldest texts composed in Ireland is the Leabhar Gabhla, the Book of Invasions. It tells a semi-mythical history of the waves of people who settled in Ireland in earliest time. It says the first settlers to arrive in Ireland were a small dark race called the Fir Bolg, followed by a magical super-race called the Tuatha de Danaan (the people of the goddess Dana).

Most interestingly, the book says that the group which then came to Ireland and fully established itself as rulers of the island were the Milesians - the sons of Mil, the soldier from Spain. Modern DNA research has actually confirmed that the Irish are close genetic relatives of the people of northern Spain.

While it might seem strange that Ireland was populated from Spain rather than Britain or France, it is worth remembering that in ancient times the sea was one of the fastest and easiest ways to travel. When the land was covered in thick forest, coastal settlements were common and people travlleled around the seaboard of Europe quite freely.

Irish Blood: origins of DNA

The earliest settlers came to Ireland around 10,000 years ago, in Stone Age times. There are still remnants of their presence scatter across the island. Mountsandel in Coleraine in the North of Ireland is the oldest known site of settlement in Ireland - remains of woven huts, stone tools and food such as berries and hazelnuts were discovered at the site in 1972.

But where did the early Irish come from? For a long time the myth of Irish history has been that the Irish are Celts. Many people still refer to Irish, Scottish and Welsh as Celtic culture - and the assumtion has been that they were Celts who migrated from central Europe around 500BCE. Keltoi was the name given by the Ancient Greeks to a 'barbaric' (in their eyes) people who lived to the north of them in central Europe. While early Irish art shows some similarities of style to central European art of the Keltoi, historians have also recognised many significant differences between the two cultures.

The latest research into Irish DNA has confirmed that the early inhabitants of Ireland were not directly descended from the Keltoi of central Europe. In fact the closest genetic relatives of the Irish in Europe are to be found in the north of Spain in the region known as the Basque Country. These same ancestors are shared to an extent with the people of Britain - especially the Scottish.

DNA testing through the male Y chromosome has shown that Irish males have the highest incidence of the haplogroup 1 gene in Europe. While other parts of Europe have integrated contiuous waves of new settlers from Asia, Ireland's remote geographical position has meant that the Irish gene-pool has been less susceptible to change. The same genes have been passed down from parents to children for thousands of years.

This is mirrored in genetic studies which have compared DNA analysis with Irish surnames. Many surnames in Irish are Gaelic surnames, suggesting that the holder of the surname is a descendant of people who lived in Ireland long before the English conquests of the Middle Ages. Men with Gaelic surnames, showed the highest incidences of Haplogroup 1 (or Rb1) gene. This means that those Irish whose ancestors pre-date English conquest of the island are direct descendants of early stone age settlers who migrated from Spain.

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The Kingdom of Dalriada c 500 AD is marked in green. Pictish areas marked yellow.

Irish and British DNA : a comparison

I live in Northern Ireland and in this small country the differences between the Irish and the British can still seem very important. Blood has been spilt over the question of national identity.

However, the lastest research into both British and Irish DNA suggests that people on the two islands have much genetically in common. Males in both islands have a strong predominance of Haplogroup 1 gene, meaning that most of us in the British Isles are descended from the same Spanish stone age settlers.

The main difference is the degree to which later migrations of people to the islands affected the population's DNA. Parts of Ireland (most notably the western seaboard) have been almost untouched by outside genetic influence since hunter-gatherer times. Men there with traditional Irish surnames have the highest incidence of the Haplogroup 1 gene - over 99%.

At the same time London, for example, has been a mutli-ethnic city for hundreds of years. Furthermore, England has seen more arrivals of new people from Europe - Anglo-Saxons and Normans - than Ireland. Therefore while the earliest English ancestors were very similar in DNA and culture to the tribes of Ireland, later arrivals to England have created more diversity between the two groups.

Irish and Scottish people share very similar DNA. The obvious similarities of culture, pale skin, tendancy to red hair have historically been prescribed to the two people's sharing a common celtic ancestry. Actually it now seems much more likely that the similarity results from the movement of people from the north of Ireland into Scotland in the centuries 400 - 800 AD. At this time the kingdom of Dalriada, based near Ballymoney in County Antrim extended far into Scotland. The Irish invaders brought Gaelic language and culture, and they also brought their genes.

How DNA reveals ancestry

This hub explains really well how DNA origins can be traced through the male Y chromosome:

The-Y-Chromosome-Ancestry-Genetics-and-the-Making-of-a-Man

Read more about the origins of the people of Ireland

Click on a title to read more about the history of the Irish people:

• First peoples of Ireland
• Life in Celtic Ireland

Irish Characteristics and DNA

The MC1R gene has been identified by researchers as the gene responsible for red hair as well as the accompanying fair skin and tendency towards freckles. According to recent research, genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.

These genes were then brought to the British Isles by the original settlers, men and women who would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair. So red-heads may well be descended from the earliest ancestors of the Irish and British.

[John S Mosby]

But, you couldn’t be... you’d be a “white Hispanic” LOL an Iberian Celt.

Insofar as you would be an Irish immigrant, back when “no Irish need apply” white hispanic or otherwise... again LOL (tongue not too firmly in cheek) and discriminated against because of ...religion? Not those who escaped the Ulster Plantation (Irish and Scots Presbyterians). Politics disgusting.

[Ray76]

Interesting info

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origins_haplogroups_europe.shtml#R1b

[Twotone]

These guys?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB3aGb-H3SM

[antidisestablishment]

Obviously reparations are in order. My ancestors were discriminated against, and I have a right to all the money they would have made, plus interest.

I think the signs said no “Micks.” Ever notice the similarity to the Hispanic slur? Coincidence? I think not. ;)

[martin_fierro]

	Genetic Genealogy >> PING <<
Send FReepmail if you want on/off GGP list Marty = Paternal Haplogroup O(2?)(M175) Maternal Haplogroup H
GG LINKS: African Ancestry DNAPrint Genomics FamilyTree DNA GeneTree Int'l Society of Genetic Genealogy mitosearch Nat'l Geographic Genographic Project Oxford Ancestors RelativeGenetics Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation Trace Genetics ybase ysearch
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[Albertafriend]

Very interesting.

[Texan5]

That is very interesting-to the best of my knowledge, I’ve no Irish or Scottish ancestors. However-my Spanish ancestors came from the Pyrenees, and were Basques-many of us still carry the original surname of those who came to the New World in the 1500’s from that part of Spain.

By the late 1700’s, most of the family had mated and married with settlers from other areas of Spain, Native Americans, moved to south Texas, and then intermarried with a couple of Creoles from Louisiana, a West Prussian or two in the early 1800’s...

And after all that mixing, dark red hair, gray/green eyes with lighter skin is still fairly common in my family (I have that look.) If the information in this article is correct, then those original genes are some powerful ones to have that kind of staying power...

[concentric circles]

The historical tradition expressed by the Scots in 1320 in the Declaration of Arbroath is often regarded as fiction but may very well be more factual than suspected.

“They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since...”

“... It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”

[Monkey Face]

Wellnow. That means that my long-standing answer to the question of “what is you ancestry?” is more right than I knew: The answer? Genetic mongrel.

Since my genealogy goes WAY back, and covers all areas of Europe, Asia and Africa, I have the right to say the word...mongrel...and be proud!

[mjp]

Who do you look like?

[Elsiejay]

I have a copy of a Skandinavens Almanak of Kalendar 1925,in which is recorded the genealogy of George Washington, traced for 33 generations back to Thrond Haraldson, king of Throndheim in Norway, born ca, 661.
The line leads through the Orkney Islands ca. ninth century, to Yorkshire in northern England ca, 1030-35, and to America in the person of Col. John Washington in 1659.

[mikrofon]

Hibernians, Iberians, not much diff....

[Bigg Red]

BFL

[mirkwood]

Many washed up in Ireland from Spain’s “Invincible Armada”.

Almost all who got ashore were killed.

[Reeses]

White Hispanics

[Gay State Conservative]

Outstanding...I’m now officially a victim.I’ll be at the ObamaPhone Multi Service Community Center at 8AM Monday morning.

[kabumpo]

This has been known for decades; Robert Graves wrote about it.

[kabumpo]

Yes. And they also play bagpipes.

[sasportas]

Bagpipes, only a people like the once-ultra conservative Scots, would be so keen about preserving shrill irritating to the ear bagpipes! Far as I can tell, they are the only people and their Hibernerian kin the Irish and Iberian Spanish) on earth who play them, and make such a big deal of them.

I have tried to trace the origin of bagpipes, so far, I have not been successful. It would solve the issue of their true origin.

[sasportas]

“Their” true origin. What I meant was if we knew from whence came the bagpipes we would know the true origin of the Scots and Hibernerian types.