The Irish are Not Celts

[Riastradh]

In several descriptions of Gaelic units, they are described as warriors of various celtic tribes. The Irish are not celts and their warrior culture had nothing to do with celtic tribes. In fact, the idea that there was some kind of a mass celtic invasion(peaceful or otherwise) into Ireland has been disproven. Here is a quote from an article on the subject.

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.

[Celtic_Punk]

Link please?

Also the fact that you say they had NOTHING to do with the culture, is totally unfounded... read the article yourself.. they just said its more of a culture invasion than genetic.... lol I love when someone tries so hard to be special they end up making an ass of themselves.

They fought in a celtic fashion, because thats how they were taught... thats like saying "oh because athenian democracy didnt allow women to vote, means its not a democracy at all..."


btw im not just goin off because of my heritage. I'd go off like this if you said Swedes arent actually vikings or something like that.

[blitzkrieg80]

how is anything completely proven when we don't have a clear understanding of the human genome? i don't care how forcefully someone says something about genetic markers, its THEORY like everything else. btw, scientific theory is what hasn't been disproven yet, not higher truth...

the Irish have many elements that compose their primordial beginning, some of which are not Halstatt / La Tene... 'Celts' is not appropriate for the timeline in question, and Halstatt / La Tene isn't even wholly Celtic people only, it's a CULTURE, not ethnicity. the Megalithic culture spanning from N.Africa to the British Isles is a good example - ironically that quote / article says EXACTLY THAT. they refer to the Megalith builders! they are indeed an interesting and important culture... and linked with Gaul and Celts

we all (fans and members) do appreciate discussion on these things, whether we're always right or not, and in this case a good point has been made and that is that we cannot completely attribute 'Celt' to the peoples the form the later identity known as Gael or Goidel despite a clearly Celtic language-speaking culture by the time of Old Irish. there are a good deal of non-Indo-Europeans in Europe who should not be underestimated. EB will be re-evaluating for EB2 the identification of all the peoples of the various lands such as with the Irish / Casse who might have a tad bit of theory stated as if it were fact... the bad side is that if some theory wasn't speculated on, then there would be nothing to say... saying how mysterious and undocumented a people is isn't very helpful for educational purposes, but we can certainly make sure it is known that we don't know for sure when things are questionable

we should also keep an eye out for interesting scientific studies, but i wouldn't buy too much into scientific procedures that haven't been fully developed yet. how many years have we scientifically verified genetic markers to correlations of ethnicities? oh wait, we haven't. let's not generalize something a lot more complicated than implied, and this was a long time ago even

[Anastasios Helios]

I guess you could say the same thing about English people then...they probably came from the same migrations that originally settled the British Isles, but they have the "Anglo-Saxon" culture so it makes them Germanic. I'm sure that despite most of Europe speaking Indo-European languages, ethnically, many people there probably aren't of true "Indo-European origin." Languages and culture tend to spread by assimilation and conquest...less by changing the gene pool. The Gauls spoke a Celtic language, but it doesn't mean that they all migrated from wherever the Indo-Europeans lived long ago. They were probably mostly descended from the old Megalithic peoples as well as most other Europeans...that's my theory.

[Celtic_Punk]

yes Blitz that is also true. The loose knit "celtic empire" was primarily a culture takeover. Take a look at southern canada if you will. The culture there is hugely influenced by american media and tourism. but go 200km north, and you see a totally different people.

Celtiberians, different genetics than all other celts. Massalians is another one! Sure they didnt fully assimilate, but their culture sure did change a whole lot. and they still had greek genetic roots.

Today what makes you irish is not being irish by blood. There are millions of us around the world, due to the dispora. But what makes you irish is how you conduct yourself. Your culture.

act american? you are american. act french, yer a frenchman! Your culture determines who you are. Not your blood.

unless you are a welshman... Once a welshman.. Always a welshman

[Anastasios Helios]

I know that the French have their cheese and bread and Asterix, but how can one "act American?"

[Yyrkoon]

I know that the French have their cheese and bread and Asterix, but how can one "act American?"

Travel the world wearing khaki shorts, a hawaiian shirt, white socks, sandals, and a baseball cap and talk really loud and slow at people in foreign countries because obviously if you talk to them like they'er both stupid and four, they'll understand you better. Oh and get ripped off by every street vendor on your travels. Back home, you have to be a religious fanatic apparently and not believe in evolution.

I say all of this as an American, so take it as that

[TheStranger]

act american? you are american. act french, yer a frenchman! Your culture determines who you are. Not your blood.

unless you are a welshman... Once a welshman.. Always a welshman

I don't share that opinion with you, because I think that this is a very nationalistic and/or stereotypical thinking.

@Anastasios Helios
But the Netherlands and Switzerland are also famous for their cheese. So your antionality is Dutch and you don't like cheese you're no Dutch? Your postings imply such old-fashioned thinking.

[Olaf Blackeyes]

Well i learned something tonite. I didnt know the Gaelic blood was different than Celtic. But in the end i guess it doesnt matter a whole lot, cuz the Celts invaded the main British Isle, and so for 500+ years the Irish had only Celts to trade with. Result=MAJOR celtic influence and finally cetic cultural conversion uponthe Irish. The only people in the world to retain the original Proto-European blood in the truest sense are the Basque people in northern spain.

[cmacq]

Of course, I would have to weigh-in on this subject?

And I will, but just not now, because I need some snooze time, muy pronto.

At this juncture, I will say I agree with Riastradh’s statement about Kelt, yet I may add that the study cited offers no actual evidence of its claim. I shall, explain this in greater detail at a later date. For example, most people are largely unaware of the rather selective and dramatic changes in the demography of Great Britain in the last two centuries. It is extremely easy to either be totally unaware of patterns or purposefully obscure patterns. My experience tells that most, for one reason or another, simply do not recognize patterns, primarily because of the nature of the sample and the methods used to organize the data. This reminds me of the Neanderthal genome project, which it turns out was a minimally interesting exercise in genetics, but by all means had nothing to do with actual Neanderthal DNA, despite repeated claims to the contrary. Otherwise, please see Kelts vs Britons, Neds, Pikeys, hangers-on, various sundries of all sorts, and other fellow travellers.



CmacQ

[Anastasios Helios]

@Anastasios Helios
But the Netherlands and Switzerland are also famous for their cheese. So your antionality is Dutch and you don't like cheese you're no Dutch? Your postings imply such old-fashioned thinking.

I was being sarcastic mate. I've never been to Netherlands or Switzerland before, but i'm sure that their cheese is great.

[Intranetusa]

how is anything completely proven when we don't have a clear understanding of the human genome? i don't care how forcefully someone says something about genetic markers, its THEORY like everything else. btw, scientific theory is what hasn't been disproven yet, not higher truth...

I agree with your other statements, but I'mma gonna be nit picky here...

A scientific theory is used differently from the layman's use of the word theory, which generally means a guess. Technically, a scientific theory is a scientific hypothesis that has survived scrutiny by the scientific method, and exists to explain scientific laws. Thus laws such as the law of universal gravitation are supported and explained by theories such as the theory of gravity and theory of relativity.

[Yyrkoon]

I haven't read all of the comments, so forgive me if this has been brought up before.

What I found interesting about the study is that they used MtDNA which tracks who a person's female ancestors were. Most of what I've read concerning genetic origins deals with finding a person's male ancestors for one simple reason: 60% of all women who have ever lived have living descendents, only 20% of men do. A factor in this is conquest. "Population Replacement" doesn't simply mean killing everyone and settling. It also involves doing what the Spanish did in the Latin America: kill the men, rape the women. They should probably be looking at the Y chromosome.

[Berg-i-dum]

The only people in the world to retain the original Proto-European blood in the truest sense are the Basque people in northern spain.

Not at all, there arent a "Basque people" differenced. The ancient basques were sheperds of the Pyrinnees who obtained celtic lands from the romans (they were their allies) so they were mixed with the defeated celts (by the romans) as the called "nervii" of NE Spain. They adopted the celt culture but only maintained their language. Nowadays there arent almost any difference between basques and other spaniards.

You know Ive read some theories, which state that the Basque have connections with the Kartvelian speaking people of the Caucasus namely the Georgians.

They are only proto indoeuropeans, as the ancient Picts and so.

But there are a lot of theories to explain this, one strange said that they can come from the deserctionist of the Hannibal armies who didnt cross the Pyrennes and Alps and they would become sheperds in the mouintains stablishing themselves there. This could explain the absence of basque culture ...until they robbed the celtic one in the Rome time. And it could explain too other language and racial issues. But it is not an approved theory.

It also involves doing what the Spanish did in the Latin America: kill the men, rape the women. They should probably be looking at the Y chromosome.

Well the most of population of latin american have not spanish ancestors. Spain was a really little country with few population to assimilate in that way the hughe population of South America. Remember how only a few hundreds of spaniard were sent to conquer Aztec empire or Inca. After conquest they were only governor elite ...not only women rapers :D. It was a mix culture in latin america, but not so big to say that almost all south americans have europeans ancestors.


About the celt problem in the thread, I think that the celts is a culture and fashion of a determinated time in ancient europe, not only a ethnic stuff. But the celts in british islands, Spain and Gaul came from the Bronze atlantic culture, the protocelts, I mean it can be true that there wasnt invasions, only a long way from the bronze age that finally produced what we identify as celt culture. This could explain the genetic similarities between iberians and ancient britons, a *"common bottom" in bronze age in all the atlantic shore: proto celts / pre indoeropeans.

Sorry about my english.

[lobf]

Not at all, there arent a "Basque people" differenced. The ancient basques were sheperds of the Pyrinnees who obtained celtic lands from the romans (they were their allies) so they were mixed with the defeated celts (by the romans) as the called "nervii" of NE Spain. They adopted the celt culture but only maintained their language. Nowadays there arent almost any difference between basques and other spaniards.

As a one-time resident of the Basque country, I can tell you they wouldn't appreciate that one bit. :P

[Berg-i-dum]

As a one-time resident of the Basque country, I can tell you they wouldn't appreciate that one bit. :P

Yeah I know, I am spaniard he he. There are a lot of romanticism there. But this is the truth.

I am galician, the "celtic" land of Spain and there are some of this topics here too.

[gamerdude873]

They should probably be looking at the Y chromosome.

Forgive me if i'm wrong, but as i understand it, this would be very difficult/nigh impossible. The y chromosome has very little actual " understand that the Y is fairly generic. I'm fresh from high school bio, and i did very well in it. One of the things my teacher taught was why men get screwed when it comes to genetic disease. Women, in order to have a recessive genetic disease, need to have both of their X chromosomes to have that disease. Men only have one X, so all it takes for a man to have a recessive genetic disease is for that X to be defective. The point of this is, many fewer genes exist on the Y than X, so like I said, the Y has very fewer features to track. Besides, there are many other chromosomes and genes that one could track much more easily, I think.

For all those that care or don't understand:
Mitochondrial DNA is also extranuclear, meaning outside the nucleus. It is located with mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. The mitochondria are all inheirited from the mother, because the sperm contains only DNA, and could not possibly donate mitochondria paternally.

Unless my teacher and book are asses, i think this is pretty accurate. Just my 2 cents anyways

[desert]

Actually, the sperm contains a lot of mitochondria. You didn't think it got all of its energy magically, did you?

In fact, paternal mtDNA can get into the egg, albeit very rarely. It usually doesn't because all the mitochondria are located in the part of the sperm that falls off when it reaches the egg, though I can't for the life of me remember what exactly that part is.

EDIT: Yeah, so only the top/head goes into the egg, and the mitochondria are in the midpiece, so they're screwed.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Forgive me if i'm wrong, but as i understand it, this would be very difficult/nigh impossible. The y chromosome has very little actual " understand that the Y is fairly generic. I'm fresh from high school bio, and i did very well in it. One of the things my teacher taught was why men get screwed when it comes to genetic disease. Women, in order to have a recessive genetic disease, need to have both of their X chromosomes to have that disease. Men only have one X, so all it takes for a man to have a recessive genetic disease is for that X to be defective. The point of this is, many fewer genes exist on the Y than X, so like I said, the Y has very fewer features to track. Besides, there are many other chromosomes and genes that one could track much more easily, I think.

For all those that care or don't understand:
Mitochondrial DNA is also extranuclear, meaning outside the nucleus. It is located with mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. The mitochondria are all inheirited from the mother, because the sperm contains only DNA, and could not possibly donate mitochondria paternally.

Unless my teacher and book are asses, i think this is pretty accurate. Just my 2 cents anyways

It's accurate but incomplete. The Y Chromosome doesn't chage (accept through mutation) that's why it's so paltry these days. The point is, you have your Dad's Y, the same one, and he has his Dads, also the same.

You can track that back a fair way and it is a good indicator of paternal ancestry.

[Sir Edward]

Forgive me if i'm wrong, but as i understand it, this would be very difficult/nigh impossible. The y chromosome has very little actual " understand that the Y is fairly generic. I'm fresh from high school bio, and i did very well in it. One of the things my teacher taught was why men get screwed when it comes to genetic disease. Women, in order to have a recessive genetic disease, need to have both of their X chromosomes to have that disease. Men only have one X, so all it takes for a man to have a recessive genetic disease is for that X to be defective. The point of this is, many fewer genes exist on the Y than X, so like I said, the Y has very fewer features to track. Besides, there are many other chromosomes and genes that one could track much more easily, I think.

For all those that care or don't understand:
Mitochondrial DNA is also extranuclear, meaning outside the nucleus. It is located with mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. The mitochondria are all inheirited from the mother, because the sperm contains only DNA, and could not possibly donate mitochondria paternally.

Unless my teacher and book are asses, i think this is pretty accurate. Just my 2 cents anyways

Well I'll clear up some mistakes here. By 'recessive genetic disease' I take it you implicitly meant an X linked recessive trait like color blindness and hemophilia A. While it is true there are very few functional genes, only 86, are found on the Y chromosome (compare this to ~2000 on the X chromosome) there is still plenty of genetic material present or features as you put it, over 58 million base pairs (153 Mbp for X chromosome).

The Y chromosome has some unique quality that makes it a nice target for population genetics. For one because all males (there are some rare exceptions) have only 1 Y chromosome there is no homologous recombination. Meaning the Y chromosome a person inherits is the same one their father had, and their paternal grandfather and so on and so forth. This genetic material passed exclusively from father to son allows for a paternal line to be created. If a mutation occurs in the Y chromosome of a germline cell, this mutation will be inherited in ALL male descendents. The accumulation of these unique mutation events in each line give geneticist a tool to determine how close two populations are.

Also I think you have a misconception about what geneticist look at when they are comparing DNA sequences. Forgive me if I am reading you wrong but your statement sounds like they look at the genes in the Y chromosome when really it is the opposite. You don’t want to look at mutations with in a functional gene because these mutations often have an effect negative/positive on the health of an organism. This change in fitness puts evolutionary pressure on the mutation, and can change the rate it appears in the population. When genetic genealogists do research on the Y chromosome they look at non coding DNA, commonly called by the misnomer Junk DNA (specifically they count short tandem repeat (STR) & look for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)). They look here because in non-coding DNA these mutations are neutral and have no impact on the health of the organism*.

To show my point that the Y chromosome is indeed useful for studying this issue of the inhabitants of ancient Britain take a look at this NYT article that highlights arguments from both camps.A United Kingdom? Maybe

*(Disclaimer non-coding DNA can effect gene expression in complex ways)

[Celtic_Punk]

what I do not understand is why anyone can think a people aren't who they are when the archaeological evidence supports original thinking, language supports it, and (though there is little) written history supports it.

Lets look at it this way. Despite Britain taking over Jamaica, the culture of Jamaica changed but did not conform to British. Result? Jamaicans are Jamaican not British.

massalia was subjugated by rome. For a time they stayed their original greco-celt culture. but due to massive influence from rome they became romanized. end result? Massalians became ROMAN

You become Canadian by living here and assimilating into the culture. Anyone in Canada who fares well in snow and can take the cold, who can speak either English or French, and well... Acts Canadian (eh!) is a Canadian. I was not born in Canada but I've changed from an Irishman to a Irish Canadian because I have taken in the culture. Anyone who doesn't fare well in cold and snow, does not simulate the social structure (no you don't have to say eh all the time, eh) and ESPECIALLY cannot speak English or French, is not a Canadian, and is still whatever culture they retain.

Culture determines not your ethnic origin (which there is no celt ethnicity, we are caucasian) but who you are. Therefore if Ireland grew acustomed to celtic goods, warfare, celtic gods, and their way of socializing and doing things, and emulated them, they became celtic.

You mistake the subtle differences for being completely different. By your(the OP) way thinking any people living outside the original site of celtic culture is not celtic, but their own form of plagiarized culture. This however is totally false. Celt influence spread over such a vast area by people accepting celtic culture into their daily lives. So for example, instead of an immigrant becoming Canadian, per say, its the Canadians who are becoming the immigrant's culture. They are STILL THE SAME GENETICALLY! but on the outside they've changed.

[IrishHitman]

Eh, I'm fairly sure the Celts came in and just took over the upper classes.