Blood of the Irish: DNA Proves Ancestry of the People of Ireland
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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!
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.
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:
Read related articles about Irish heritage
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.
A spoof (and very funny) exploration into the characteristics of all Irish-blooded males can be read at this link: www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend. Identified genes include IMG or the Irish Mother Gene and the GK (MF) S Gene Kelly-Michael-Flately-Syndrome which explains the inability of the Irish man to move his hips while dancing!
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I agree with SilverGenes- your Hubs really are so fascinating- and I was surprised by the Basque connection as well. Who would have thought?? Very cool Hub.
Thanks guys - I aim to please! I think you are right SilverGenes; at the end of the day we are all descended from the same African mother if you go back far enough. We should be thinking of ourselves as a human family!
The Basque people have always been unique. Marie this is an outstanding Hub and recently finding out my Scot-Irish roots makes it all the more personal. Excellent research and write.
Hi, Thank you! lol I have always said that the Irish were originally from Spain! everybody thought I was making it up! I think that the original reason was the similarity in certain words, like Guarda and Guardia, the name of the police force. To me that was the give away. Thanks I can now show everybody that I was right! this was fascinating. I remember reading that when for example Scotland and Ireland always said they were Celtic it actually was the southern English who have the most Celtic in them, like boadicca was a red headed Celt. I would love to find out my DNA as on my fathers side, he was a red head, and on my mothers side, my gran had bright red hair flowing down to the ground! I think somewhere along the line we must be either Celtic or as you said, from Spain! rated up! fascinating! cheers nell
Thanks Nell Rose! You were right the Irish ancestors seem to have come from Northern Spain - but the language similarities are not because of this! Irish words like 'Garda' come from English or Latin language in more modern times. The ancestors of the Irish came so long ago that the Spanish language didn't exist at that time. The Gaelic Irish language shows connections to Northwest France, Wales and Scotland. English used to be Celtic too, but Romans and Anglo-Saxons started to push them westwards. There are various DNA testing services available now - but make sure you check out what you are paying for. I have the impression some are more reliable than others. I think there are some hubs on the site about this very topic!
Having been a history teacher in the US, we were taught that the Swedish People migrated down to Ireland and England and Europe and killed off the countrymen there and took their land, and possessions. The Swedes did not have refinery like the British Island and other countries there. The Swedes killed off the whole families and they didn't have to. We are taught that they were very Barbaric. My mother's side of the family is from Ireland, and my father was Scotish. I have celtic type blood. I have not done any DNA analysis yet, but I know that my blood type reflects the Swedish blood type. So I think they stayed and married the Irish women, and scotish as well. The Nordics were inhabitants of the area, and I never heard of the Spanish people intergrating, with the Islanders.
This was a fascinating read. As a hobby-level genealogist, I've found I have Irish ancestors a good many generations back... and possibly some Scottish, as well. My husband wisecracks that "The Irish & Scots 'got into everybody at some point!' "
I also have some French ancestry, and the Basque region shares a corner with France as well as Spain...so, we are, indeed, a motely crew, we humans!
Voted up!
Marie, an outstanding treatise on the Irish.
I have long felt an affinity to the Irish and those with red hair. It seems that Hungarians and Ukrainians have a high incidence of red or auburn, too.
The Basque connection is most intriguing. I've also seen a chart of Western Europe of the percentages of type "O" blood and it seemed to be highest in Ireland and in the Basque country.
I've also seen reference to Rh-negative being particularly high in Basque and in Georgian regions.
What an interesting tapestry lies below the details of history!
And one genetic study found that Basques, Finns and some Native American tribes share in the rare mtDNA haplogroup X.
I have also found linguistic clues which tie Basques to Etruscans and Georgians; linguistic and cultural clues which tie Basques to some Native American tribes, Etruscans, Hungarians, Finns, Georgians, Sumerians, Dravidians and Mon-Khmer. Each of these speak an agglutinative language, and have had matriarchal, matrilineal or highly-egalitarian societies, now or in the past.
And the Georgians live in a land once known as Colchis, which held the Golden Fleece, guarded by a golden dragon. And the princess Medea helped her new Greek lover put to sleep the dragon so he could steal the fleece. And years later, after being betrayed by one man after another, she fled Athens, flying away on a golden dragon. Did she have the gumption and resentment to form a society without men? In many of those agglutinative languages, the word for "mother" is "ama" or similar. What better word to name her new band of women than "Ama-Atlan" (Amazon) -- after the old motherland from whence all these people may have come -- mother Atlantis?
Scientists aren't looking for Atlantis, partly because there is too big a stigma attached to it. Careers can be ruined by associating with the "A" word. And yet we have proof that an Atlantis-like event occurred 9620 BC -- right when Plato said the fabled island was swallowed whole.
And Plato's location for Atlantis is right where a geologist could expect to find mountain (or island) building -- a tectonic plate boundary. The stretch of the Africa-Eurasia plate boundary between the Azores and Gibraltar is one of the most tortured and enigmatic boundaries on Earth.
Below those waters may lie the real home of the Irish -- the land some have referred to as the home of the "red" ones. The land where ruddy copper was highly prized.
There's a lot of fascinating ideas in your comment, lone77star - I think you could write on hub based on it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'll still be sticking to the Irish coming from Spain as my personal theory, though!
i guess you have spent a lot of time on this topic. great hub!!
Marie, sounds good. But before Spain?
Before Spain is anyone's guess!
Another great hub on a really interesting topic! My husband who is from Co. Clare always tells me that his very dark kinky curly hair is from his Spanish ancestors, I couldn't argue and geographically it made sense. I will share this hub with him. I find ancestry fascinating and although all humans are one big family it is interesting to see the ancestral road we took to get to where we are.
Why were the irish and the british people lied to? This pisses me off...
The Basques are the original europeans and get this...according to scientists the direct descendents of the cromagnon man.So you guys can be proud...=)You descend from sweet and good people,id know...1 more thing some people say the basques are of a holy bloodline =O
I don't think we were lied to. I think we created mythologies about ourselves that we are different...
I disagree that the Greeks considered the Celts Barbaric. The Celts were long time trading partners and military allies with the Greeks, and fought with them against Pheonicia. There are numerous references to Celts in Greek literature.
I must be a mixture,I am Tall,Dark and Blue Eyed.My skin Tans in the Sun.I have a lot of Ginger if i grow a beard.My Dads parents were Irish and we are all dark haired infact my Dad looked like a Spaniard.However I grew up in the lone star county of Yorkshire and The Worlds one Big Onion!!!
Hello And I Like Everyone else Didnt know that the Basque People Are More aless the Same People as Irish People But a little Strange Thow But I Meet a Basque Person Once and She wasnt very Friendly and Abit Sarcastic More Like But Back Again I Would Have Said to Her Behave Sister. Lol
The connection to the Basque for Irish and British people is now no longer in vogue. The theory before was because of the preponderance of y R1b of both populations ignoring the fact that R1b is the majority haplotype for nearly all of Western Europe. Genetics have advanced more and R1b has now been broken down into several clades and surprise surprise the Irish aren't particularly related to the Basque. Are the Basque noted for fair skin and red hair? The subclade that is common in Ireland is different than the subclade found in the Basque. The Irish subclade is virtually absent in the Basque and Spain and vice versa. The new information has been updated on Wikipedia and most other genetic sites. The y chromosome also would only show some ancestral relationship and not how close 2 populations were. That would have to be done by autosomal dna. The Irish/British are quite distant to the Basque on autosomal dna.
Thanks Alice for the update - will research and revise as appropriate...
Ah well that is why in our family I have the fair skin and blonde hair (dad had the auburn) and my sister the dark hair and dark skin! A great hub and one which I wish those who continually see racial differences would take the time to read and think about as we are all in the end members of one big family!
I'm from Asturies in he north of Spain,(footbollers David Villa and Juan Mata are from Asturies). I have ancestors redhaired, and blonds, I also have red haired friends and they don't have any relation with Ireland, they are completely spanish. I'm not an expert in genetics. But there is something in common between the brittish and the spanish. They built the biggest empires in human history.This explain why the languages of such small countrys is so worlwide spoken.(Asturies kingdon was the origin of Spain and Portugal)
I must say I was taken by your writting, my family has always said we are Irish/ Scottish on mom's side and my fathers is German. I was told our family goes back to the Celtic times, we have alot of red heads in the family on both sides. However we also have the blondes and so dark brown it's almost black, in fact my graandfather was blonde until 21 then almost over night it turned black. People have always looked at pictures of my mother and said she looked as if she was Romanian, or Spainish or even Italian due to her being 5'8 and 105 as she was prekids, and she had the most bone straight black/brown hair with brown eyes and her skin has always been an olive colored does not sound like many irish or scottish that I have seen. I have always kinda in my own way thought of the celtic tribes as more like a mixture of different races because that was how many books made it out to look. If anyone has any more information on it I would love to hear about it ASH46808@gmail.com
Hi Amanda. The Gaelic-speaking people of Ireland (sometimes called Celts) were a mix of tribes but they seem to have spoken the same language and to have been closely genetically related. In Scotland the original inhabitants were known as the 'Picts'. Gaels from Ireland later moved to the West Coast of Scotland, Anglo-saxons moved into the eastern lowlands and some vikings settled in places like Orkney and the Outer Hebrides.
Hope this helps!
I enjoyed your article about the Basque connection to Ireland. My mother's great-grandparents are the McManus and Boyd families from the County Kerry.They came to the USA in the early 1900's. We have black hair and hazel-brown eyes,short height. My mom said we are Black Irish.Is our colouring the Spanish DNA ?
I posted a question last week regarding my Irish heritage and the Spanish connection to the County Kerry.I just got the results of my DNA test and it confirms my Black Irish heritage is from Spain, Portugese and the Spanish Canary Islands.
It's exciting to begin exploring my new found heritage
Hi Laura - that is exciting! Good luck with researching your heritage. Our family histories can be so rich and fascinating. At the end of the day we are all descended from people who came from different places and backgrounds.
My Grandmother was an ONiell. The Family Coat Of Arms has a small blue spot at the bottom with a fish showing. I researched this and that fish on a blue sea designates that the O'Niells crossed the water from Spain. It makes sense now.
That's cool. The O'Neills were once the most powerful clan in Ireland. They claim to be the descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish king in the time of St Patrick....
Hi Marie
A very interesting hub. I was particularly interested in reading about the Irish antecedence because I am descendant from the Irish on my father's side. He was not white but he did have freckles and a lighter complexion for a black man born in Barbados, and my maiden name was 'Mahon', which if I remember is a city in Spain.
I inherited the Irish gene as a result of slavery. The story goes that the Irish were sent to Barbados as indentured slaves to work the land for the English but because they could not cope with the searing heat the work was left to the black slaves brought in from Africa. Eventually some of the Irish took over the plantations from the English, had relationships with the black slaves and created a new race of Bajans who were light skinned with Irish surnames.
If you go to Barbados today you will meet many with surnames like 'Daly' 'MacMahon' 'Murphy' 'MacDonald''Lynch' or 'Sweeney'
Hi Editorsupremo,
Thanks for sharing about your fascinating family history. I have also heard about Irish slaves who were transported to the Caribbean. Apparently many people on the island of Montserrat are descended from Irish people brought there as slaves. Today it is the only place outside of Ireland which celebrates St Patrick's Day as an official holiday!
Mahon is actually an Irish surname, though I don't know what it's original meaning was in Gaelic. It might be a city in Spain also - I don't know about that one!
Marie,
My dad (black hair blue eyed irish) also told the story of the black irish being descendants of the shipwrecked armada sailors...guess that could have been a story to explain the various types of hair and eye color and probably stature of the irish. Anyhow, the Maher family occupied central ireland since the origin of the name around 1000 ad. My reasoning is that my ancestory weren't very ambitious so didn't move but when we came to the USA also stayed in central Iowa for several generations. Great reporting from you, really appreciated.
Thanks for sharing. I am always amazed how many people have some Irish ancestry. And how many people like finding about out the Irish side of their family history!
My mom claims that im only what i am if i trace back 5 genereations...Now, i hav pure red hair but my great grandparents are from Cuba, i looked up my family last name and it says we're from the Asturias, which is right next to the Basque Country which leaves me to belive im related to the Irish, especially since i have light skin, a buncha freckles on my nose and the red hair.....do u think i could be Irish?
P.S. My grandma is from France, do u think she might be part Irish?
Family history is a fascinating subject, and most of us have a complicated one! Red hair can come from Ireland, but also Scotland, northern France and Scandanavian countries like Denmark. There also seems to have been Celtic culture in the north of Spain - so maybe your red hair comes from there? If you have some family names among your ancestors which begin with 0'.. or Mc... that could be a sign you have Irish ancestors.
i just found out i have irish in my blood but i also have alot of indian.i have blue eyes and brown hair.my skin isnt exactley pale but not exactley tan.i do have freckles on my body but not on my face.do my blue eyes come from my irish heritage?
A lot of people in Ireland have blue eyes, and quite a few have freckles. There is a good chance you have them because of yout Irish ancestors!
this is a great article. i have always wondered about this as we now know that there were people in Ireland thousands of years before the celts started their mass migration across Europe.
My understanding is that being a Celt was, and is, determined more by cultural nuances than by genetics. The Celts shared a common language & religious & artistic traditons. The term 'British' as used today is a misnomer - again my understanding is that it was used as a propaganda tool by Elizabeth I of England as she imposed her state Protestant religion on Wales, Cornwall & on Ireland & began a drive to destroy the Celtic languages in those countries. The term 'British' was an attempt to 'lump together' peoples of very different cultural backgrounds & traditions, and this is still being done today. Personally, I think the contemporary drive to stress how much the 'British (i.e English) have in common with the Irish is more politically driven than anything else. Are we going to see Elizabeth II reinstated as Queen over Ireland, perhaps in return for a bribe of a bailout ?
I don't think you are going to see Elizabeth II as queen of Ireland! However, what I do believe is that the Irish can be confident enough in their own identity to recognise their connections to the British, as well their many differences. That may be political, but it is also political to insist that the Irish are a pure celtic race with connections to their neighbours. A lot of violence has been done in the name of that point of view.
SilverGenes Level 4 Commenter 13 months ago
Your hubs are so interesting to read! I learn something new every time. I think it's fascinating about the Basque connection. And then we have the stories of the surviving sailors from the Spanish Armada who made it ashore in the north. You know, if we keep going back far enough with our DNA we will find out we have nothing to fight about anymore! :) Rated UP!