Before the Celts?

[finnobreanan]

load of me bollox!!

A complete disregard for our own traditions!! The books of invasions are some of the oldest oral traditions in Europe!!

Actually, the author devotes several pages to the Books of Invasions. The genetic Matriarchal line, which he has named "Helena", originates along the Mediterranean cost, migrated along the shores of Spain and western France, and is found throughout the Isles. An interesting parallel to the oral traditions I thought.

[Urselius]

A recent DNA marker investigation, using an unusually large group of markers (Current Biology, Vol 18, 1241-1248, 26 August 2008. Correlation between Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe. Oscar Lao et al.) showed an almost complete overlap of Irish and UK (apparently sampled in London) marker frequencies. There was also a very significant overlap of both with the Dutch and a lesser one with the Norwegians. The UK sample showed very little overlap with either the North Germans (Kiel) or Danes. Very interesting.

[finnobreanan]

Well, I wasn't going to spend the money to do it, but for my birthday, my wife bought me an "Oxford Ancestors" genetic roots kit. I went with the Matrilinial line, or had my mtDNA tested. I had done extensive geneology on my family and know for certain that my national ancestors came from: England: 5/8; Ireland 1/4; the rest (in various fractions): Germany; Switzerland; France; Normandy (yes, Vikings). No great surprise in my findings: Clan of Helena is my matriarch. This is also the dominate matrilinial line in all the British Isles (Including Ireland) and a better part of Europe.

I need to finish this book before I draw conclusions, but I suspect that the original inhabitants of all the British Isles were the same people. Celtic influence came from Europe and left a very rich culture that survived only on the fringes of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany. The original inhabitants remained the same and were not anihilated by invaders. The people who built stone circles and Newgrange never left...their culture simply changed by contact with Europe.

[finnobreanan]

I finished the book, Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. As I mentioned in an earlier post, over 80% of the inhabitants of Ireland have the Y (male) chromosome that the author has named "Oisin": Leinster has 73%, Ulster 81%, Munster 95%, and Connacht has a whopping 98%! The roots of this gene have been in Ireland (based on mutations) well over 4,000 years ago, long before Celtic culture arrived.

Here is the surprise, not only is the Clan of Oisin the root male ancestor in Ireland, but in Whales it is 86%, Scotland is 78%, and even in the Pictish area of Grampion it is 84%. The author noted that their is hardly any gentic difference between a Gael and a Pict. What was also suprising is that England's population today is still 64% descended from the Clan of Oisin.

In Ireland there were traces of two male lines called Wodan and Sigurd (noting that genticly there is no difference between the Vikings and Normans, and even Angles, Saxons, and Danes share similar DNA) and these were concentrated in the Norman settlements in Munster, the Pale in Leinster, and in Ulster (later Scotish immigrants would have been dominated by Oisin also).

To get back to the original question, "Who was in Ireland before the Celts?", from a genetic point of view, it is the same stock of people as today. The Clan of Oisin originated in Iberia, came up the Atlantic coast, settled in England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland thousands of years ago. In spite of numerous invasions, they were not replaced entirely, and in Ireland hardly at all. There is no genetic evidence that there was a major influx of Celtic people from central Europe. There is good archeological evidence that La Tene Celtic Culture spread through most of the isles, but none for a major invasion and war.

[Leinsterman]

There is good archeological evidence that La Tene Celtic Culture spread through most of the isles, but none for a major invasion and war.

Genetic studies seem to point to the Saxon 'Invasion' as having replaced only the ruling elite of the population across most of Britain with only the East coast showing any substantial population replacement.
Historical evidence shows the Norman 'Invasion' to have replaced only the ruling class, but this was enough to replaced much of the legal and social system very quickly.
In the Seventeenth Century Ireland we have strong documentary proof that forceful replacment of population with less than 10% newcomers of a different religion, backed by strong laws for language and dress code change - backed by economic sanctions for non compliance - in Eastern Ireland caused the Irish language to go in a few generations.
Periodic subjugation of the mass of population by military elites seems to be the pattern behind cultural change in these islands since the Bronze Age. I believe that the probability is that major cultural change may not just have been economically driven, eg new technology, but has been implimented by military elites whose genetic legacy may not be evident in the population today. Part of the reason for this in Ireland may be that the 'invading' elites were coming from nearby geeographic areas whose population was, AT THAT TIME, genetically very similar, eg the Iberian Peninsula.

While I respect archeologicaly sourced information, I am mindful of the fact that while the migration of the Irish into Scotland 1500 years ago is a historical fact, it does not show up on the archeological evidence. The Irish use of landscape was probably very similar to the Picts, but nevertheless the Gaelic language and Irish social customes became dominant in Scotland.

A recent DNA marker investigation, using an unusually large group of markers (Current Biology, Vol 18, 1241-1248, 26 August 2008. Correlation between Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe. Oscar Lao et al.) showed an almost complete overlap of Irish and UK (apparently sampled in London) marker frequencies. There was also a very significant overlap of both with the Dutch and a lesser one with the Norwegians. The UK sample showed very little overlap with either the North Germans (Kiel) or Danes

The lack of similarity between Irish and North german markers does not surprise me as Southern Gemany, as the German Chancelor said recently, has 'Celtic' links.
The Danish genetic legacy on the east coast of ireland may be limited nowadays. One has to take into concideration the eastward migrations of the Irish population over the last two hundred years. East coast populations have moved to the UK and have been replaced continuously by rural Irish population. It is difficult to find anyone in Dublin today whose ancestors haven't arrived there in the last 200 years. Plagues like the 'Black Death' effected the eastern towns, which also received much new population from Britain.

[Stitchlily]

Biologists at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands have constructed a genetic map of Europe showing the degree of relatedness between its various populations.
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/306-the-genetic-map-of-europe/

According to Dr. Ulf Erlingssons new book Atlantis from a Geographer's Perspective, we are Atlantians...
http://www.atlantisinireland.com/