[article] The Irish are not Celts, say experts -discussing.

thejollyrodger

So it looks like were arent celts after all. This doesnt surprise me because we have in common with people from scotland or Northern Ireland. This 9,000 year old theory ties in with Ireland/Atlantis as well.

Arent Trinity doing a DNA sample at the moment ?

The Irish are not Celts, say experts
Jan Battles
The Times

THE long-held belief that Ireland’s population is descended from the Celts has been disproved by geneticists, who have concluded that they never invaded Ireland.
The research at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) into the origins of Ireland’s population found no substantial evidence of the Celts in Irish DNA, and concludes they never settled here en masse.


The study, part-funded by the National Millennium Committee, has just been published in The American Journal of Human Genetics. It was one of four projects funded by the government under the Genetic History of Ireland programme, which aimed to provide a definitive survey of the origins of the ancient peoples of Ireland.
Part of the project’s brief was to “discover whether there was a large incursion by Celtic people about 2,500 years ago” as was widely believed. After comparing a variety of genetic traits in Irish people with those of thousands of European and Near Eastern inhabitants, the scientists at TCD say there was not.
“Some people would go as far as saying there was total replacement of the population (of Ireland) 2,500 years ago,” said Brian McEvoy, one of the authors. “But if that happened we would definitely be more related to people in central Europe, because the Celts were supposed to have come from there. We’re just not seeing that. We’re seeing something earlier. Our legacy is the result of the first people to settle in Ireland around 9,000 years ago.”
About 15,000 years ago, ice covered Ireland, Britain and a lot of northern Europe so prehistoric man retreated back into Spain, Italy and Greece, which were still fairly temperate. When the ice started melting again around 12,000 years ago, people followed it northwards as areas became habitable again.
“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 very old genetic legacy.”
While we may not owe our heritage to the Celts, we are still linked to other populations considered Celtic, such as Scotland and Wales. McEvoy said: “It seems to be more a cultural spread than actual people coming in wiping out and replacing everyone else.”
A PhD student in Trinity’s department of genetics, McEvoy will present the findings tomorrow at the Irish Society of Human Genetics annual meeting.
He and Dan Bradley of TCD took samples of mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother, from 200 volunteers around Ireland using cheek swabs. They also compiled a database of more than 8,500 individuals from around Europe and analysed them for similarities and matches in the sequences.
They found most of the Irish samples matched with those around Britain and the Pyrenees in Spain. There were some matches in Scandinavia and parts of northern Africa.
“Of the Celtic regions, by far the strongest correspondence is with Scotland,” said Bradley. “It corresponds exactly with language.” While that could be due to the Plantation of Ulster, Bradley said it was more likely due to something much older because the matches occur throughout the whole of Ireland and not just the north.
The geneticists produced a map of Europe with contours linking places that were genetically similar. One contour goes around the edge of the Atlantic, around Wales, Scotland, Ireland and includes Galicia in Spain and the Basque region.
“This isn’t consistent with the idea of a large invasion here around 500BC,” said Bradley. “You would expect some more affinity with central Europe if we owed the bulk of our ancestry to a movement from central Europe but we don’t.”
Some archeologists also doubt there was a Celtic invasion because few of their artifacts have been found in Ireland.

simu

This isn't all that surprising really. There were people here before the Celts and it's not as if a genocide took place when the celts arrived.

QC

I thought the whole idea of a widespread invasion by a large number of "Celts" went out of fashion quite a while ago, and it was thought more likely that there were only a small number of invaders, making up a small elite ruling over a much larger population of mainly earlier indigineous people.
Anyway, the celtic grouping is mainly a loose linguistic and cultural grouping rather than a racial grouping, i.e. peoples who spoke languages of a distinct branch of the indo-european languages and followed similar customs. This study says nothing particularily new, just puts a "controversial" spin on it to get media attention.

thejollyrodger

I dont know what to make of it. I think once they do a DNA survey of the population they will realise that we are unique genetically and they are going to have to change our history a bit.

flogen

had a quick scan through the article there, but couldnt find an explanation to the simple question.. what about all the celtic weapons and jewels that have been found in Ireland? Did we non celts just make them in some freakish co-incidence, or did a lot of Celtic tourists get mugged/lose stuff

flogen

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

Some archeologists also doubt there was a Celtic invasion because few of their artifacts have been found in Ireland.

doesn't say they weren't here, just that there wasn't quite as many of them as we thought..?

flogen

Mordeth wrote:

doesn't say they weren't here, just that there wasn't quite as many of them as we thought..?

Ah right... I see, I always thought there were tons of artifacts, but there ya go!

I was right, they were tourists.

flogen

thejollyrodger

so basically there was feck all stuff left over from the celts but everyone just took it for granted that the celts were here from the start. So someone decides that they cant have been our anstesters. What about this older group... 9,000 is a long time... are we really that old ? I cant wait to find the results from the nationwide sample done by Trinity

pork99

flogen wrote:

had a quick scan through the article there, but couldnt find an explanation to the simple question.. what about all the celtic weapons and jewels that have been found in Ireland? Did we non celts just make them in some freakish co-incidence, or did a lot of Celtic tourists get mugged/lose stuff

flogen

Maybe that's a bit like some 50th century archaeologist coming to the conclusion that we were all Americans because of all the MacDonald's packaging and Friends DVDs they'd find in the strata of early 21st century Dublin.

I believe the point of this research (bearing in mind I sure ain't no expert in molecular biology) was that the Irish, Welsh, Highland Scots and the Basques share some distinctive genetic profile which suggests that we are the last remnants of the original wave of Homo Sapiens who spread into Europe from Africa via the Middle East 30,000(?) years ago. We're the original Europeans. How cool is that?

delgnacha

This would simply amaze my Mac Manman, Hannon, O'hAodha, O'Ruairc, MacEoghain, O'Dochertaigh, MacIlbhennaigh, and O'Neill ancestors who were very much considered Celts by their "betters," thereby being considered less fit for company than kennelled dogs, and whose first langauge was the type of Q-Celtic called "Gaedhalaig."

Sounds to me like the "betters" academic branch merely want to finish off the job they started 900 years ago. Next, we'll hear that Zulus, Xosa, and other indigenous peoples aren't 'African?'

The corollary to this study is one conducted elsewhere that finds a very high proportion of males in populations on the western fringes of Europe carry certain genetic markers in their sperm not carried in significant numbers by any other groups on the planet, and the percentages who do in any numbers also dwell in areas formerly famously occupied by our--- blast it--- Celtic forbears. Even the Basques and Sardinians and Corsicans (probaby the remnants fo the so called Beaker people) carry them, as ancient Celtic oral history would attest to conquest and reconciliation between the two groups followed by much intermarriage.

So, perhaps the later-comers such as Saxons, Normans, etc never actually arrived in such numbers themselves.

EamonnKeane

pork99 wrote: »

I believe the point of this research (bearing in mind I sure ain't no expert in molecular biology) was that the Irish, Welsh, Highland Scots and the Basques share some distinctive genetic profile which suggests that we are the last remnants of the original wave of Homo Sapiens who spread into Europe from Africa via the Middle East 30,000(?) years ago. We're the original Europeans. How cool is that?

We're not some sort of "pure" race, all Europeans will have a mixture of the "original" people and the proto-Indo-Europeans. And humans didn't reach Ireland till 9000 BC.

Also, "Celt" is a fairly vague term anyway, more cultural than ethnic.

silverharp

I heard an analogy once that celtic art in ireland is the equivalent of somebody finding a prada bag in Japan and assuming the people must be Italian

brianthebard

It seems strange that a lot of posters assume that historians thought that Celts were the first people to turn up in Ireland around 9000BC. Obviously that was never the case. I'd be interested to know what the biologists define as a "Celt", considering the multiple invasions that took place in this island pre and post Iron age it seems odd that there wouldn't be enough Celtic dna here, even if it didn't come from an actual celtic invasion. In any case the idea that the Irish are a Celtic race largely derived from the romantic idea of a dispossed celtic race, made popular by people in the nineteenth century like yeats and gladstone.

Meathlass

The idea of a Celtic invasion went out of fashion in archaeology circles about 20 years ago. The few artefacts we have here are very poor copies of Celtic art and nothing at all like the Celtic La Tene and Hallstatt art on the continent. I remember a lecturer in UCD telling me that if it wasn't for the Irish language there would be no reason at all to suppose that the 'Celts' had come here. Jury's still out on how that happened. One theory was that 'Celtic' women married Irish men and taught their children Q Celtic and it spread through the population like that. Not sure if that would work though. The Celtic Ireland notion is a 19thC Irish revival idea. The European Celts were disaparate groups of warriors and traders who didn't refer to themselves as Celts at all.

Jolly Rodger I don't get your comment about the Ireland/Atlantis connection.

Tha Gopher

“Of the Celtic regions, by far the strongest correspondence is with Scotland,” said Bradley. “It corresponds exactly with language.” While that could be due to the Plantation of Ulster, Bradley said it was more likely due to something much older because the matches occur throughout the whole of Ireland and not just the north.


So wait....

We arent Celts according to the headline.

But we are closely ethnically linked to Celtic Scotland.

So.....we are Celts.....just not in the way we thought we were.


Sounds like a load of sh1te tbh.

cabinteelytom

It would seem that the word 'celtic' is being used in two different senses; as a term for ancient peoples described by Herodotus as living up the Danube spelled in most English translations of the greek as 'Keltoi' ...and a completely erroneous (but now hallowed by custom over 150 or more years) term of 'celtic' to describe culturally-related peoples clinging/surviving on the north-west coasts of europe.
In the ancient Irish texts the feminine ideal was usually described as having black hair, and white skin and there was rarely much more detail from the mainly clerical scribes ; one could certainly find many such types in Ireland in recent times.
Perhaps blonds were rare until the vikings arrived.
Another one of these genetics studies concluded that most of the female contribution to Iceland's gene-pool was Irish/Scottish women (they might be the same thing).
It would seem that Irish pre-history goes back only 9,000 years...and that only the most modern form of homo sapiens has ever lived in Ireland.

Ventus

Just because they have "concluded" this doesn't prove anything. I've seen 110 studies by "scientists" that all contradict each other. From what I have researched and studied over the last 10 years I'd say that many sources and evidence point to the probabilty that The Celts were here and their very essence is echoed throughout the history of this country. And since no one yet can fully prove either way, I would think that being tied to The Celts would only enrich the roots of Ireland, considering they were an incredibly evolved race in both their day to day life, their music and their spirituality. As far as I am concerned I will always associate Ireland with the Celts and it makes it a more magical place for me.