The Sunday Times - Ireland
September 05, 2004
The Irish are not celts, say experts
Jan Battles
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.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspap...247765,00.html
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