Geneticists show that The Irish are A Race Apart

Originally posted by Nygdan

...then the scots would breed with the english, passing some genes, including at time the haplogroup, then the english with the people of, say, brittany, normandy, france, etc etc, each population taking up and passing along genes at their periphery.

OUTSTANDING! This type of information is simply outstanding. THIS is the direction we need to heading to get some kind of consensus that allows some "vision". VERY WELL DONE.

KEEP DIGGING. If you are following HIS lead... KEEP DIGGING WITH HIM. There's more there... I especially find interesting the manner of a somewhat "calculateable" dissemination and incorporation of whatever "differing" genetics WERE possessed by the Irish. Interesting stuff... you had even me stopping and trying to get "further" than we are... LOL.

Again, WELL DONE!

Southpaw

Hi southpaw,
Ive been reading this interesting thread and all though I dont have much to add, there are some facts about the Celts that are easy to find.
The Celtic culture orginally came from central Europe, spreading out through nearly all of Europe and migrating to the British isles and Ireland around the bronze age (these are the barbarians the Romans talked about, Celtic comes from the Greeks, their word for barbarians). There was another group of people before the Celtic culture who lived in Britain and Ireland called the "Beaker" people, these are the people who built sites like Stonehenge and Newgrange, which a lot of people mistake for Celtic, as the Celts also later used these sites. These people date back as far as 6000-8000 years ago arriving after the ice age.
Historians now suggest that "Celtic" was a more a cultural revolution and not an actual people, the British and the Irish (so to speak) adopting a culture and beliefs to go with there own. Ireland was a supposed HQ for the Driuds after the Roman invasion.







[edit on 5-3-2007 by Kurokage]

Doesn't this infomration mean that the Irish interbred? Since there is litte diversity between the genes, they must have interbred? Hmmm... I'll look into that...

All ethnic groups interbred? That is how certain mutations form a new norm - evolution. That's how you get groups with all blonde hair, red hair, black hair and many, many, many other traits. Did you know that if you can process milk or other dairy products that you are a distant descendant of a central European tribe in current day Switzerland, or from a tribe in East Africa - who both developed the mutation to allow the digestion of other mammals dairy products at about the same time thousands of years ago. There are also people in Italy that are nearly immune to cholesterol related heart issues - through inbreeding. Inbreeding was not always a "taboo" either, in ancient cultures it was normal - not brother and sister usually - but cousins .. actually the practice only disappeared a little after the American Civil War. When you say "inbreeding" you think of genetic mutations and family members marrying each other. While it is true inbreeding can increase the rate of mental disabilities it also increases the chances of producing genius offspring! Also, interbred mutations usually lead to the adaptation of their given environment. That would be why polar bears are different from brown bears, because they interbreed in isolated communities and eventually evolution will form a different sub species of bear. Humans are the same way - we are animals after all.

The same process is theorized to be the reason 3 different sub "races" of human diverged from Homo sapiens - because isolated communities eventually adapted to their environments. This takes incredible amounts of time though. The current Irish population is a mixed population with genes from all over the world, especially Europe. Would they have traces of ancient peoples who lived there? Sure, we all have a little bit of ancient blood in us, a little bit from all over the world. Tracing genetics is a risky thing to do if you go about it the wrong way, and if you have a predetermined goal in mind, it doesn't matter what you find it will support your self proclaimed thesis.

A possible reason for differing DNA is that various ethnic groups have populated that region over thousands of years. It is now thought that Spanish ancestry began before the celts in Ireland between 6000 and 7000 years ago.

source

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.

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.

source

Instead, a research team at Oxford University has found the majority of Britons are Celts descended from Spanish tribes who began arriving about 7,000 years ago.

Prof Sykes divided the population into several groups or clans: Oisin for the Celts; Wodan for Anglo-Saxons and Danish Vikings; Sigurd for Norse Vikings; Eshu for people who share genetic links with people such as the Berbers of North Africa; and Re for a farming people who spread to Europe from the Middle East.
The study linked the male Y-chromosome to the birthplace of paternal grandfathers to try to establish a historic distribution pattern. Prof Sykes, a member of the Oisin clan, said the Celts had remained predominant in Britain despite waves of further migration.

wikipedia source

According to Edmund Campion writing in 1571, at the court of King Amenophis of Egypt, Galamh married the king's daughter, Scota; when the pharaoh had drowned in the Red Sea, Galamh and his people wandered for many years before conquering Hispania (Iberia, or modern Portugal and Spain) and establishing the city of Brigantia.
It had been prophesied that Galamh's descendants would rule Ireland, but he himself never reached its shores, dying in Gallaecia (modern Galicia and northern Portugal) in the north-west of the Iberian Peninsula. One day, on looking out from the tower of Breogán, his uncle ĺth saw the island of Ireland (Hibernia) across the sea and decided to sail there with Scota: on arriving in Ireland he met the country's three kings - men of the Tuatha Dé Danann - and was killed by them. Out of vengeance, eight sons of Galamh (ie. sons of the Míl Espáine, thus Milesians) and nine brothers of Íth set out from their territory (said to have been around modern Bayonne in the Basque Country) and invaded Ireland.1

source Interesting read with excerpts and links to Lebor Gabála Érenn ( The Book of the Taking of Ireland).

Numerous fragments of Irish pseudohistory are scattered throughout the seventh and eighth centuries, but the earliest extant account is to be found in the Historia Brittonum or "History of the Britons," written by the Welsh priest Nennius in 829-830. Nennius gives two separate accounts of early Irish history. The first consists of a series of successive colonisations from Iberia (Hispania, modern Portugal and Spain) by the pre-Gaelic races of Ireland, all of which found their way into LGE. The second recounts the origins of the Gael themselves, and tells how they in turn came to be the masters of the country and the ancestors of all the Irish.

source

The Tuatha Dé were descended from Nemed, leader of a previous wave of inhabitants of Ireland. They came from four northern cities, Falias, Gorias, Murias and Finias, where they acquired their occult skills and attributes. They arrived in Ireland, on or about May 1 (the date of the festival of Beltaine), on dark clouds, although later versions rationalise this by saying they burned their ships to prevent retreat, and the "clouds" were the smoke produced.

source

In Irish mythology, Nemed ("holy" or "privileged") son of Agnoman of Scythia was the leader of the third group of inhabitants of Ireland. They arrived in 2350 BC according to the chronology of the Annals of the Four Masters, 1731 BC according to Seathrún Céitinn's chronology.

source

In Irish mythology Partholón was the leader of the second group of people to settle in Ireland, the first to arrive after the biblical Flood. They arrived in 2680 BC according to the chronology of the Annals of the Four Masters, 2061 BC according to Seathrún Céitinn's chronology, and the time of Abraham according to Irish synchronic historians.

source

In Irish mythology, Cessair (or Ceasair) was the leader of the first inhabitants of Ireland before the Biblical Flood, in what may be a Christianisation of a legend that pre-dates the conversion, but may alternatively be the product of post-conversion pseudohistory.

An earlier poster mentioned the Tuatha Dé Danaan as the first inhabitants thought to be Gods but according to Irish mythology they were actually the
fourth inhabitants.
I find the Spanish link as far bach as 6-7000 years ago interesting, could some of this Spanish ancestry that inhabited Ireland also have had contact in the other direction from Iberia with Native Americans. 2 cents worth.

I still havent seen any evidence from the OP to back up the claim that "The Irish are a race apart", only evidence to the contrary.