The Irish are Not Celts

[oudysseos]

I can't comment on the utility of these genetic studies, but I can provide Cmacq (what does that mean?) with a link to the data. http://www.gen.tcd.ie/molpopgen/resources.php
I reckon that the study originally referred to by Riastradh in his first post is the last one on this page, i.e. The Longue Duree of genetic ancestry: multiple genetic marker systems and Celtic origins on the Atlantic facade of Europe, McEvoy B, Richards M, Forster P, Bradley DG. According to the readme text, the study considered 300 individuals in Ireland. There are additional files detailing the results and providing the data used, but I have no idea what all the numbers mean .

Late breaking developments: here is the full text of the study. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...medid=15309688

Riastradh, I respectfully suggest that you take a look at this. It neither says that Irish culture wasn't Celtic or that they unequivocally came from Iberia.

The recolonization of western Europe from an Iberian refugium after the retreat of the ice sheets ~15,000 years ago could explain the common genetic legacy in the area. An alternative but not mutually exclusive model would place Atlantic fringe populations at the “Mesolithic” extreme of a Neolithic demic expansion into Europe from the Near East.
An alternative explanation might simply be restricted patterns of long-term gene flow within these two major ecogeographical zones in Europe, facilitated by the Atlantic and Mediterranean seaways. It is difficult to distinguish genetically between a common Paleolithic origin and more recent contacts. However, haplogroup R1b3f Y chromosomes, which have a recent origin in Iberia (Hurles et al. 1999), have not been found in Ireland (Hill et al. 2000), arguing against the migration of very large numbers of men by this route, at least, in the past 2,000–3,000 years.
What seems clear is that neither the mtDNA pattern nor that of the Y-chromosome markers supports a substantially central European Iron Age origin for most Celtic speakers—or former Celtic speakers—of the Atlantic facade. The affinities of the areas where Celtic languages are spoken, or were formerly spoken, are generally with other regions in the Atlantic zone, from northern Spain to northern Britain. Although some level of Iron Age immigration into Britain and Ireland could probably never be ruled out by the use of modern genetic data, these results point toward a distinctive Atlantic genetic heritage with roots in the processes at the end of the last Ice Age.

What it does say is that the genetic evidence does not support a central European origin for the people of the British Isles. The monolithic common origin of all Celtic speaking peoples was proposed by Edward Lhuyd in 1707 and has not been the major academic consensus for a long time, so this isn't really news, eh?

Anyway, Cmacq, I hope this is what you're looking for.