Irish Genetic Traits

Richard Wheeler

It has been shown that the Irish people of today share multiple genetic similarities with the Scottish and Welsh, and not as much with the English. But this is unsurprising seeing as the Irish have always been associated with the Celts, who are indeed associated with the Scots and Welsh. But I did find it surprising to learn that the Irish have close genetic relations with people in further regions.

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Upon studying the remains of a 5,200-year-old Irish farmer, researchers at Trinity College Dublin and Queens University in Belfast suggest that the population of Ireland at that time was closely related genetically to the modern-day populations of Southern Europe and, in particular, Spain and Sardinia. They also looked at the remains of three 4,000-year-old men who not only had a similar genetic make-up to the modern Irish, Scottish and Welsh, but ¹/₃ of their ancestry came from the Steppe region of Russia and Ukraine. This information suggests that many Irish people living in Ireland today have genetic connections with people living on the island over 4,000 years ago.

At the time, Europe would have been covered in dense forest, so people found it easier and faster to move and communicate through the seas surrounding Europe, hence the close genetic relation to the Spanish, Welsh and Scottish, and also the Eurasian influence.

Compared to the rest of Europe, our genetic make-up has remained relatively untouched. Where Western Europe has developed, our genes haven’t really changed from pre-Celtic times. This ‘Celtic’ gene is even more prominent in the West of Ireland, where few people have migrated to and settled in over the centuries.

Eddy Van

Fun Fact → Scientists have identified the ‘MC1R gene’ as the gene responsible for red hair, fair skin and freckles. Genes for red hair appeared in humans around 50,000 years ago, and is most common among the Scottish and Irish.