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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For history conscious people. Seriously look into the matter that Amorica (Brittany), in northwest France is named after Moor (north Africans) in their heyday of trade links in the ancient past to the Middle Age. The Moors (Cufic Arabs) from north Africa sailed across the Atlantic to reach the unknown land (New World) in 650 CE and that place came to be called America after the Moor. Barry Fell, in his “Saga America” (1980, page 190) noted that there were Cufic Arabic inscriptions in Nevada and elswhere of modern USA that has been carbo-dated to 650 AD. An Arab explorer Sad ibn abi Waqqas reached America in 650 CE after sailing across the Atlantic, after sailing further east, Sad ibn abi Waqqas reached China in 651 CE with 14 other companions (sailors).
There`s one thing that should be taken in consideration, the fact that in Minho (north Portugal) there are many persons with blue eyes and with blond hair. My mother came from a small village in the interior of Minho where they had great earth and water to cultivate and they kept isolated from the main roads and there everybody is blond and everybody has blue eyes. This only could exist by a very long time origin.
Proto-Celts became, or were Basques. Basques were all over the place, a pan-European substrate. Various minority aristocracies came, much later, to dominate the substrate. This differentiation created the different Indo-European races, which, because of their identical substrate, weren’t much different at all, but THOUGHT they were, because their aristocratic families brought about individualized languages and cultures. The Basque/Celtic substrate, commoners, were consumed with the doings of the rich and powerful of their tribe, and time passed, making even commoners forget their commonality. Onto the proto-Celtic/Basque substrate comes some surviving aristocratic families that meld very ancient ‘Celtic’ culture with modern, Iron Age culture. What have you got? Galls, Goidels, Gaels, Galicians. Celts. The problem with religious competition is failing to acknowledge the Universality of the creative deity. The problem with recognizing the Celtic blood in nominally Celtic lands is in failing to see the ubiquitous nature of the Celtic race. They were the seed stock of all Europe, and perhaps India too. Call them Basques, if you want to. A rose by any other name, is still a Celt. Ireland isn’t marginally Celtic. It is exhaustively Celtic.
Dear Quahog King, Basques have nothing in common with Celtics. Thay came in historic and docummented times to occupy the land once poblated by the Celtics. That’s the reason you’ll find some Celtic rests in Basque Country.
If you like to find Celtic heritage and remains you should look more to the west: Cantabria, Asturias and Galicia in Spain and Minho in Portugal. Those were and, in some extent, are Celtics.
The Celts were Indo-Europeans. There was a prehistoric population in place before the Celts got there. The British Isles aren’t Celtic, except by culture. That culture used to be all over before it was replaced by Romans, another Indo European culture, except on the fringes, where the culture remained Celtic.
remember: Race is different from culture; modern europe is the result of a mix of peoples and Ireland and the British Islands are no exception; the population of the green Ireland might be celtic by culture by in reality is the amalgam of several layers of ADN.
The problem Quahog King, I feel, lies in the over-use of the term Celtic and modern peoples’ perception of the term since schools totally ignore anything before the Romans in Britain. I believe the answer lies in the mistaken belief of Celtic origins. By Celtic I mean the actual Celtae of Caesar. Celts did not originate in central Europe – I think that horse has been ridden out of town now, it is looking very likely as you say, that they and all the other various groups called Celtic today, originated in or near the Basque region and later spread from there to dominate the Atlantic and western Europe, finally spreading into central Europe where the historically attested Celtae developed a rather more distinctive cultural signature derived from the trade routes which they dominated. (Hence why no substantial archeaological trace of them in the UK or Ireland can be found). Whne you look at all the disciplines – linguistics, archeaology, topography, religion and any other relevant studies, it becomes overwhelmingly apparent and obvious that the Celts and the Irish and British populations share a common origin. It just isnt in Central Europe!!!!!
In terms of the difference of Basque and Celtic languages my theory is aligned to the idea that Basque women married Celtic speaking men, had children to them and then left that region with them after the thaw. Some of these perhaps stayed behind and were absorbed into the Basque culture but others joined the migration into further parts of Europe and the west. The migrants maintained their Celtic language and those left behind maintained their Basque language. This could explain the strong similarity between what are seen as “Celtic” dna groups and Basque ones depsite the massive differences linguistically
Isn’t it extraordinary that so many people (including journalists), when discussing events believed to have taken place just after the last ice age, seem naively to imagine that countries like Spain, Portugal, the Basque Country and so on existed in those days, and that there was, for example, a “Spanish” identity? These various countries of Europe, with their identities, were thousands of years in the future!
I’d say that the Irish are Celtic in light of practicing a Celtic culture. The indigenous Irish may have stronger genetic ties to the Basques and other peoples of the Iberian peninsula than to the Indo-European from the Caucasus mountains, but these days there are plenty of Irish citizens with roots from elsewhere – Poland, Nigeria, China, etc. – who share in the Celtic culture of their country as well.
Also, one element that were are forgetting is the extent to which the culture and traditions of pre-Celtic Ireland blended with the ways of the incoming Celts. The Celtic identity adopted by the Irish probably absorbed a good amount of the autochthonous culture, which would explain in part the nuances that differentiate the “Gaelic” or “Goidelic” Celtic culture and language of Ireland from the separate Celtic cultures and languages of ancient Britain and mainland Europe. Sure, some of the difference can be explained by drift and isolation over time, but there are probably many subtle elements, undecipherable to us today, that remain in Irish culture from the pre-Celtic customs, whatever they looked like.
Similarly, we should remember that the “Celtic” peoples of continental Europe, too, at some point adopted Celtic languages in place of older tongues. Ethnic Celts didn’t replace the previous inhabitants of Gaul anymore than ethnic Romans and Franks replaced the Gauls themselves… Just as the Gauls started calling themselves French and speaking the Vulgar Latin dialects that evolved in Romance languages, their ancestors probably picked up Gaulish from their neighbors at some point.
yes definatley makes sense to me & helps explain for me to understand my ancestry roots helps clear confusion& open other option leading to a clearer understanding & or lessons the confusion due to further confirming this theory Thankyou! interesting
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