Scientists have concluded that the Celts did not invade Ireland en masse, nor did they replace an earlier group.
Despite the widely held belief that the Irish are descended from Celts who invaded Ireland about 2,500 years ago, a 2004 genetic research study at Trinity College, Dublin (TCD) appears to argue against it.
The Celtic cultural heritage in Ireland is prolific and informs the common perceptions and beliefs about the national identity and its origins. From traditional cultural sources in language, legend and literature the Celtic influence is strong and can also be found in contemporary culture such as Enya and the Afro Celt Sound System. The research however suggests that our blood if not also some (at least) of our culture can or should be attributed to wider origins: Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia and North Africa.
The study, conducted by Dr. Dan Bradley and Brian McEvoy, a Ph.D student conducted this genetic study with the support of the Irish government to determine “whether there was a large incursion by Celtic people 2,500 years ago” as is widely believed.
The scientists compared the DNA samples of 200 volunteers from around Ireland with a genetic database of 8,500 individuals from around Europe. (The Celts came from Central Europe stretching as far as Hungary).
They found that the Irish samples matched those around Britain and the Pyrenees in Spain. There were some matches in Scandinavia and parts of North Africa.
The scientists concluded that ‘the Irish’ genetic makeup stems from the onset of an ice-age around 15,000 years ago that forced prehistoric man back into Spain, Italy and Greece, which were still fairly temperate. When the ice started melting again around 12,000 years ago, people followed the retreating ice northwards as areas became hospitable again.
The TCD study produced a map of Europe with contours linking places that are genetically similar. One contour goes around the edge of the Atlantic touching Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and includes Galicia in Spain as well as the Basque region.
Some archaeologists also doubt that there was a Celtic invasion because few of their artifacts have been found in Ireland.
“The primary genetic legacy of Ireland seems to have come from people from Spain and Portugal after the last ice age.†said McEvoy. “They seem to have come up along the coast through Western Europe and arrived in Ireland, Scotland and Wales. It’s not due to something that happened 2,500 years ago with Celts.†We have a much older genetic legacy.
The findings are published in The American Journal of Human Genetics at the University of Chicago.
Does this finally help explain the ‘dark Irish’ phenomenon?
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This does explain who the black Irish are. My father and sister both had black curly hair and light skin and eyes. They were small boned and short. Dad’s family was from Western Ireland in county Cork. I believe genetics have proven a connection, at least with the men of Western Europe, to the Basque’s of Spain and France.
It’s ironic that genetic studies make clear the importance of the Basques in European people’s origin while Spanish goverment still doesnt respecte their right to decide as a free nation, even denying their existance as a nation.
http://www.johnbreslin.com/blog/2004/09/05/irish-celts/
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1064152004
DNA shows Scots and Irish should look to Spain for their ancestry
JOHN INNES
THE Irish and Scots may be as closely related to the people of Spain and Portugal as the Celts of central Europe.
Historians have long believed the British Isles were invaded by Iron Age Celts from central Europe in about 500 BC. But geneticists at Dublin’s Trinity College now claim the Scots and Irish have as much, if not more, in common with the people of north-western Spain.
Dr Daniel Bradley, genetics lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, said a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics into Celtic origins revealed close affinities with the people of Galicia.
“It’s well known that there are cultural relations between the areas but now this shows there is much more,” Dr Bradley said.
Historians believed that the Celts, who were originally from the Alpine regions of central Europe, invaded the Atlantic islands in a massive migration 2,500 years ago. But Dr Bradley said that it was possible migrants moved from the Iberian peninsula as far back as 6,000 years ago and up until 3,000 years ago.
The study, using DNA samples from people living in Celtic nations and other parts of Europe, found
there are also close links between Scotland and Ireland dating back much further than the Plantations of the 1600s, when many Scots moved to northern Ireland in search of fertile farming land.
This article: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1064152004
Last updated: 10-Sep-04 00:51 GMT
The welsh are of a predominantly meditteranean appearance. Most people in wales have black hair and brown eyes with white skin (some have dark skin like ruth madoc, imogen thomas and catherine zeta jones (whos mum is only 1/4 irish btw)). some welsh people have blonde hair or red hair with blue eyes too (about 5-7% at most).
In population genetics on y-chromosomesthe welsh are in haplogroup markers 88% r1b, 5% I, 4% e3b, 2% r1a and 1% j2.
Haplogroup r1b averages 90-95% amongst the basques
of northern spain and south-western france. The basques speak a language isolate and are descended from the people that lived there some 35000 years ago.
genetic marker r1b is 70% in spain , northern italy and 65% in portugal. R1b is only 22% in sweden and 1% in finland. r1b is 40% in germany.
R1b is found highest in atlantic britain, western ireland, western france, northern span and western portugal. Genetic marker r1b is found in greatest diversity in northern spain indicating it originated there.
The basques have no relationship with the celts or any north european ethnic group. None of the peoples of spain or southwestern france do.
Most welsh people are descened from people who arrived from the iberian refuge in the paleolithic and mesolithic. The celtic languages did not originate in central europe, they originated in north western spain and came to britain via the atlantic coast fo france. A roman general mistakedly located a river in the pyrenees for being the danube and the home of the celts hence the myth started.
Language spareading only requires a minority elite and most geneticists and historians agree that populations have changed very little in the last 7000-5000 years despite languages spreading very fast.
The welsh along with the people of western ireland, cornwall and scotland have significant middle eastern influences on maternal dna (from north africa via spain) that arrived in the mesolithic.
Evidence for welsh genetics:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co….ils.php? id=7817
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales…les/ 1256894.stm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wel…ki/ Welsh_People
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cg…22/10/1964/ TBL1
http://www.geocities.com/littled…ect/ Cavalli.htm
Evidence for Welsh phenotype:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wiki…ace_- _Map_4.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ima…e: Pobolycwm.jpg
http://www.misswales.co.uk/ hallo…halloffame.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/pobol…cwm/characters/
http://www.rhosjudokwai.co.uk/7)…)% 20PHOTOS.html
Youtube video of welsh tv programs spoken in welsh
http://youtube.com/watch?v=PslYcjWFNNU
http://youtube.com/watch?v=dnuHaUhWqNY
My Ashley (peerage.com) Ancestors,migrated to the colonies from England.
My DNA hAs the Ui Neil signature. I also have the Anatolian bump (Turan kemigi) Physical Characteristics only of Scythia now known as turkey.
Gene Ashley
Irish mythology speaks of a migration from northwest Spain. There is also a myth that the celts passed through Egypt where the chiefton married and Egyptian princess named Scotia. I may have spelled her name wrong but either way you get the picture. I am inclined to believe that the celts originated in central Asia and that there were different waves of migration, just as there were with their cousins of Germanic ethnicity. One such migration came through Europe and arrived as far as Britain. The other migration, which I believe would be much earlier, traveld through the middle east and north Africa. There is clearly a very strong connection between Ireland, Scotland and Spain as well as Brittany and Wales. There are artifacts as late as the 5th century A.D. with inscriptions in Gaelic in north west Spain. Also Galicia is known by the ancient name of finestere and Brittany has an area also called by the same name. Apparently the name has something to do with land’s end. I think it is very interesting to note that all the places where celtic culture has survived are very similar in appearance. All have hills and mountains, are very green and rainy, and are located on or near the coast.
Basque nation is a myth. The Vascongadas is a cultural and ethnologycal region of Spain. The people of Basque Country is a crucible of races: old peoples like vascones (not from Basque region rather Cantabria), cantabros, castilians, etc…
The basque nationalism is a XIX-XXth centuries. The most famous basques were always spaniards, some of them are today condemned to ostracism because of they are spaniards rather basque fundamentalist and fanatic. For example Unamuno & Pio Baroja in XXth have been erradicated from cultural nationalism because both were pride to being spaniards.
Basque Nationalism was born in XIXth with SAbino Arana a mediocre school master. His philosophy has connections with eugenism & is a precedent of nazi philosophy: paganism, ultranationalism, exacerbated fanatism racism.
If the richness of a people along his history is determinated by the cultural and racial cross, the nationalism and eugenism deffended by people like Asier represent the poverty and the indigency.
Irish, Scottish are rich people because they’re mix of blood, but too mix of culture. Their cultures are complex, powerfull and astonishing
A greeting, my celt friends
A explanation of Sabino Arana and “his philosophy”
http://www.thinkingaustralia.com/thinking_australia/wikipedia/default.php?title=Talk:Sabino_Arana
michael posted: “Irish mythology speaks of a migration from northwest Spain.”
I don’t see what planet he comes from but the Milesians invaded Ireland from just a minority and imposed their language on the mesolithic red-haired and blond people of Ireland from Galicia. The Milesians come from Galicia and Galicia is a celtic nation so I don’t think how it should be a mythology in any sense since Irish genes come from Galicia.
If you really want to get more info:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0819_040819_atlantis.html
One word… “bagpipe”
errr, the indigenous people of ireland were not all blond or red haired, you are sounding like a nordicist mike.
The indigenous people of ireland were mainly brown haired and blue eyed brunn racial types with a minority atlanto meditreranean phenotype arrivin gin the mesolithic. there may have been some red hedds in ireland in the mesolithic too and maybe some blondes but even today the vast majority of irish people have dark brown hair with either blue or mixed or green hazel eyes and occasionally pure brown eyes.
blonde hair is rare in ireland and found most frequently in the north east and in the former viking towns for obvious reasons.
galicians are genetically very different to the irish and the milesians were unliklely to have left much genetic impact at all.
galicians are about 56% r1b, ireland is 85-90% r1b. The basques however are 95% r1b and live in north eastern spain and south western france and have no connection what so ever with celts so like it or not the irish are not descnded from celts but rath paleolithic human beings who moved north from the iberian ice refuge and repeatedly arrived in waves from 15000 years ago to 7000 years ago.
The political notion that the “Basque people” who are in fact a mixture
of Iberian composite want independence from Spain is a false one!
Polls periodically conducted by the Basque autonomous government
in Vitoria, demonstrate that a large percentage of Basque, are very
comfortable with their greater Spanish idenity!
Only a small purality 10%-15% support the terrorist org. ETA .
I think the majority of supposedly Irish Celts just got B&^%$-slapped [no abusive language - mod] and paddy wacked into thinking they were the majority of Milesians who inhabited Ireland. What makes me laugh are the Irish are so Superstitious in that they had a bogus historian scholar such as T. F. O’Rahilly who did not understand genetics at the time and it was not in his field of Science/genetics to do so. It has only recently come to light that the Irish are of Mesolithic inhabitants and only a minority of neolithic to bronze age inhabitants introduced the Celtic language.
There are at least 30 words in Gaelic that are the same in Basque; Muine-Muino- a hill, Art-(H)artza- a Bear, Maith-Maite- Good/beloved, Ur-Ur-old Irish for water/moist, Aite-Aita- old Irish foster father, to show a few. Linguists may say they are borrowings but there are many Gaelic words in English spoken in Ireland which are a residue from the older language; Galore- go leor,Smashing- Is maith sin, Gob-mouth, smithereens- smidirini etc, get the picture? We are good at dropping the old languages! Ongi ibili!
So, let me see if I get this straight. The Mesolithic inhabitants of Spain/Portugal, from whom the Basques are a remnant, invaded Ireland, thus creating the basis of the populace. So we might be talking about two different Celtic groups.
so we can differentiate between the two groups.
One originating in Central Europe that gradually moved westward.
And another thought to be also Celtic because the Romans thus named them, but which in reality were not connected to the Eastern Celts, well at least not ethnically.
So the languages spoken by natives in the British Isles and pre-Roman Iberians should have some similarities. Now, I am not sure how close the languages of Ireland/Wales are to the Gaul’s. But maybe they shouldn’t be too close unless a later wave of Central European Celts migrated to the Isles thus adding some of their language.
The interesting thing is that when studying Celtic history, it is mentioned that the Celts of Portugal/Spain developed a separate cultural traits from the La Tene culture.
Also, many Gauls were described as being blonde and fair by the Romans, which set them appart from Ireland/Portugal/Spain types a bit.
Another interesting thing is the use of bag pipes in the Isles. Bag pipes are also used in Portugal/Spain and in other Mediterranean countries, but I never heard of the Gauls using bag pipes!
So maybe we should call ourselves Celts, and Central Europeans, Kelts
There is also an interesting article found in this link:
http://www.bethnesaf.net/SteveJones.php
My Mtd-DNA comes from my great great grandmother Ellen Mary O’Regan (c1832/4-1913) of Adare, Limerick, Ireland and is Arab. My overall DNA comparison with current world populations shows a primary match with Andalusians, plus Catalonians, Portuguese & Basque, as well as Moroccan Berber & Algerian Mozabite (who were The Moors that invaded Spain). These results imply a recent link to my ancestry. I suspect that it comes from the Napoleonic Wars in the Iberian Peninsula, when the British Army was using a considerable number of Irish troops. Presumably her father, William O’Regan, a cooper, was serving in the region and brought back Ellen’s mother to Ireland? I appreciate that the Vikings traded with the Arabs and liked Arab girls; there was trade between the region and Ireland during the Iron Age; some girls may have survived the Spanish Armada, since the ships had officer’s families and staff as well as troops. However, all these are too distant for me to have 27% DNA from the Iberian Peninsula today.
I read with great interest Chris Drakes comments. I have never known my Fathers family , only they were Irish and his mother was Grace Reagan and Father Will Rogers. My mother is white English . I am constantly asked if I am Spanish, Mixed race, etc. I started looking into Irish history in an attempt to discover my heritage. I have black curley hair, dark skin ,dark blue eyes and a bulid more in line with Spanish/mixed race women. How do I go about discovering my true DNA?
Naw i think my family just grew out of irish soil
Yes, asier, it is very humilliating how the Spanish government have opressed you over the centuries, granting you all kind of privileges over the rest of the population in the rest of Spain… The so called basque nationalists are ingnorant people who did not go out from their small village in their whole life. The basque politicians have been poisoning the basque people with lies over the past thirty years but now, their time is over and when the basque people go out from the basque country and mix up whith the rest of the Spanish people they realise that we are not “devils” (as they were told) but their true family and the only people in the world that would be worried and help them if some kind of disaster happened there. We, in Spain, are a big and proud family, and our local cultures form part of something more important which is the Hispanic culture …And basques of all times like Diego López de Haro, Pedro López de Ayala, Juan Sebastián Elcano, Legazpi, Urdaneta, Ignacio de Loyola, los Oquendo, BLAS DE LEZO, Churruca, Arriaga, Zumalacárregui, Unamuno, Maeztu, Baroja, Zuloaga, Zubiri , etc
knew that years (some of them centuries) before you and your stupid mentors were born…
This is very interesting to read, I have been trying to find information on this. My boyfriend is Irish and his whole family has olive skin, almost black hair and blue or green eyes. Would be interesting to know where this comes from!
Okay so who knows where the spainish influence originated? Northern Africa? Berbers? Any ideas there? My mother’s dad was Manx and she had olive skin was short had black hair and a big nose …I have heard that some of the Irish and more Norse part of the Isle of Man ihas taller pointy nosed, far haired light eyed people. This I find intriuing becasue people call them the Irish influenced ones…but if the Irish are also Spainish then where does tht elave thinigs? Who are these extra dark manx folks?
My mtDNA is H6a1a and my yDNA is R1b1b2a1b5.
If there are any male O Mahonys out there join us in the yDNA surname project at FTDNA. You can get details on http://www.omahonysociety.org
My “ancestral origins” just point to a very ancient journey to Ireland. Any “matches” out there? What I know is that we were probably here in Tir na hEireann to welcome the “Celts” if they came here,
These findings make sense and are well known, the substrate of Ireland and the Iberian peninsula is old and probably mesolithic, a time when Iberia and the southwest of Ireland were some of the few places were the ice caps hadn´t touched. But it´s amusing to see the obsession, particularly from Americans, about genes, DNA, features and ancestry (I even met an American that called himself ´Viking-American´ for crying out loud!).To talk about celtic vs spanish is flawed from the beginning. It widely acepted that the term ´celtic´relates more to a cultural influence than a notion of ´race´. To say a person is celtic or spanish in terms of DNA is nonsense because Spanish doesn´t relate to a race either. My race is not ´Spanish´that´s my nationality. If being Spanish means to have a ´tan´then how about the blondes and blue eyed Spaniards, are we less Spanish or should we start to be called ´celts´ or some other made-up race.The same way that the archetypical Irish is not blonde or red haired not everybody in Spain has dark features for exactly the same reasons. Northwest Spain had a strong celtic influence but the substrate was Iberian and nobody here says that the people from northwest Spain are celts. Something very similar to the Irish. The Irish are Irish. The Spanish Spanish. Don´t get to obssessed about these things.
Dont know if this is interesting but my family tell me that the origin of our name comes from Galicia. Used to have a D in front (D-Gilleece) meaning “of Galicia” and possibly from survivors of the armada, a name that the locals gave them?
“The Irish are Irish.The Spanish, Spanish. Don’t get too obsessed about these things”. Matiegu, to be intensely interested in one’s history,heritage and culture and even to find it facinating, is not to be obsessed. An obsession has a real medical definition.
The largest cultural saturation of Celtic civilization can be found in Portugal and Spain, and not in Central Europe or the isles. We’re talking about entire towns, artifacts and written Celtic Languages. This tells me that Portugal and Spain is the true Celtic homeland. I think it’s time for all the new age folk to find a new hobby and time for a rethinking about who the Celts really are.
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