Blood of the Irish: What DNA Tells Us About the Ancestry of People in Ireland

05-17-2017 • arclein

The blood in Irish veins is Celtic, right? Well, not exactly. Although the history that used to be taught at school said the Irish were simply a Celtic people, related to the central European Celts, the truth is much more complicated, and much more interesting than that. Research done into the DNA of the Irish has shown that our old understanding of where the population of Ireland originated may have been misguided. Although the modern Irish have been shown to share many genetic similarities with Scottish and Welsh populations, and to differ somewhat from the English, due to repeated waves of migration to the island they also have close genetic relations with people further afield. In fact, some of the Irish's closest DNA links are with regions further afield!