'Celtic' myth exposed by DNA

This article is way out of date. The R1b that arrive d in Ireland came a lot later than first thought. Even the Basques arrived later than first thought. The irish and Basques share similar direct male ancestry around 6,000 years ago. Look up R1b L21. Celt is a linguistic term anyway not an ethnic one

Genetically the people of the UK and Ireland come from the same stock. The Basque connection is interesting. What of a Basque connection to the different peoples in the UK if there is one? The basic gene pool in the UK and Ireland did not change. The different invaders changed the culture and language of the original folks.

What are some basic attributes of the Basques?

My DNA has been done and while it is squarely in Ireland .... I have a handful of DNA duplicates among the Basque people. So, I have no trouble with this. The migration across Europe had to take a left because of the Ice Age.

this news does not surprise me at all. My family always believed they were of "Spanish" descent, as some of us have dark hair, eyes. I guess the Black Irish thing has some truth to it. !! :)

spain basque is a feeling that is strong with erinacts and suits. mucho gracious

Could it be possible that the Picts were in fact the Basque? Not really much is known about the Picts or their Language...They are considered the Aboriginals of the Islands, So, they may well have been a Basque tribe...How strong is the Basque DNA in Scotland versus Ireland?...

There were pockets of people who spoke Norse in Ireland up till the Famine years. They left or died like the ones who spoke Gaelic. That doesn't prove that all Irish have some Scandinavian roots. Theres another myth floating around that all dark haired Irish particularly from Connaught have some modern Spanish in them from the Armada. Yet if anyone reads Moryson's book "The Great Armada" he will soon learn that the Irish really treated them a whole lot more cruel than the Protestant Scotch because the Irish were just getting over another drubbing from England and were afraid to help their fellow Catholics the Spainish survivors of the Armada.As for looking back far to the Ice age what were the numbers of these prehistoric Spainiards a great many or few?until we know for sure we can't say Basques and Irish are brothers. They may well indeed have come up from Spain but Spain itself was a human refugium for many differant people forced south by the Great Glaciars.Some of these ancient Irish may have belonged to a group we have never heard of.

Hallelujah! Popular belief seems to skip the first centuries after the last Ice Age and go directly to the Milesians, which is hogwash. But, what about the Tuatha De Danaan, who were supposed to have either chased about the Fir Bolgs into the hills (small and dark, 'the little people'. They were supposed to be tall, graceful and light haired/light skinned. Were they before or after the Mileasians? Also, Alba (Scotland) was heavily settled by the Dalcassians who were Irish raiders from northeast Ireland, and they displaced the Picts, who were the aboriginal people of Scotland, and popular belief is that they were small and dark and became Scotland's elves and fairies.

The legends themselves say that the Milesians succeeded the Tuatha de Danaan, and that before them in turn were the Fomor, although they are hazy about the origins of these earlier peoples. Possibly successive waves who all immigrated from Spain at different times? We don't know, but the legends do give a Spanish origin for the Milesians, and if the DNA says the original inhabitants (the Fomor, or someone else?) also came from there, there's not necessarily any inconsistency in that. The Milesians are considered to be Gaels, a sub-group of the Celts.

The Celts had an important influence on the English language which is related to that genetic study which shows the Anglo Saxons did no exterminate the Celts they met in England. At least Celt genes are recognized now amongst English people (and not deemed racially inferior), maybe one day too, the Celtic origins of English vocabulary will find similar acceptance.

Identities are language and culture based, not racially or genetically based. Ireland has a strong and distinct Celtic language and culture, some of which survived the English invasion and occupation. Interestingly, when you get away from formal French and learn street French the manner of talk is funny, laced with elaborate metaphors, and playful, a Celtic cultural heritage. My own parents could speak very formal English, even using Victorian periodic sentences, but when they were being Irish their English was another language culturally and psychologically - witty, playful, self-mocking, full of elaborate metaphors and dramatized emotions. Much more fun. But then the old English working class speech was also great fun.

Curious about what this article did not point out from this DNA study, namely that the Irish, Basque AND English are closely related but not that closely related to the rest of Europe. In England there is also a thin overlay of Saxon and Celt, as there is in Ireland, with the Saxon thinner.

But you put "Celtic" in quotation marks as though you had found evidence to disprove something the Irish think about themselves. You had not. The well-known monument Newgrange was built by the people the Celts incorporated into what became two thousand years of Gaelic Ireland.

Many folks researching Irish family history, have not studied early Irish History at all. This is understandable, but it can lead to misunderstandings. I have had several genealogical researchers state that the Celts and Milesius were the first Irish, etc... The point of this brief article is that people were here thousands of years before the 'Milesians', and it has been proven we carry the DNA of those people today. Evidenced of late by the bones found in the Burren, DNA matched to living school children, pre-dating the Milesians, etc... The fact is that DNA is improving our knowledge of the origins of the Irish.