Geneticists: English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh Are Same People
Wednesday March 7, 2007
According to an article in the New York Times, the DNA of individuals throughout the United Kingdom is so strikingly similar that the people of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales may all be descended from the same majority population that has existed on the islands for thousands of years and may not be descended from different peoples at all. Will we be able to put to rest the idea that England, Scotland, and Wales are separate independent countries?
Comments
However, what about the possibilities of integration between these people? The English conquered Wales, Scotland, and Ireland a couple hundred years ago(about 1200s to 1600s?) What about the possibility that the English intermarried into the other groups?
One of my family members (many from Britain), married one of those pesky French people way back when. I can’t EVEN discuss him! Then another married a Native American. I wonder how many Native Americans are around that may not realize it?
England, Wales and Scotland may have more of a genetic connection because of the intermingling through wars, religion and geography, but I find it hard to believe there is much dilution of the Irish blood, given the hatred of the oppressing English and the conservative religious backgrounds of Protestant and Catholics. Going back to the origin of the Celtic peoples (Scots-Irish) there COULD be a source for all those peoples, decended from the Celts.
There is a an argument that the “Anglo-Saxons” never existed. Apparently the so-called Saxon invasions derive from limited historical sources (one ? – the Venerable Bede), and archaeological evidence suggests continuity of architectural style and farming methods, and no evidence of violent invasion.
I have always pondered why Celtic words are virtually absent from English. That suggests no intermingling or inter-marriage. But I’d doubt if the so-called Anglo-Saxons utterly slaughtered the Celts or enslaved them or ignored their language(s) and customs. Were they pushed back to the periphery en masse ?
It’s been suggested that Roman references to the “Saxon Shore” was not some kind of defensive wall, but merely an observation that Saxon-speakers were already (peacefully) settled.
Perhaps “Anglo-Saxon” was just a trade language ? a lingua franca ?
Why did the (allegedly) Celtic peoples of present-day ‘England’ remain uninfluenced by Roman occupation – after 400 years of occupation ? Even the elites had shrugged off Roman culture within a generation.
All very confusing.
That conclusion pretty well ignores the strong influence of the Vikings on the northern shores of Ireland and Scotland. Dublin and many other place names are of Viking origin, and who can ignore the physical characteristics of the Highland Scots and the red-headed Irish?
Sigh! Don’t any of you people ever read up on things before you write about them? Haven’t you heard through DNA tests done in the U.K. that “English and Welsh are races apart”? What is more, the Scottish and Irish also have the same Germanic DNA as the English.
too robert. you say celtic words are virtually absent from english, what about gaelic? my last name barrentine has two gaelic words in it. Barr = top, or head and tine = fire or firearms. some say my last name is irish and some say english. i believe that the irish and english are the same people.
And what do you reckon that 90% of these comments about the English and Irish being distinct are from in-bred Americans? Why don’t you so-called “Irish-Americans” just concentrate on the mess of your own country before coming over to Ireland with your racist shit – no one wants it here, whatever you might think!
Read Steven Oppenheimer’s Origins of the British.
This blog is ill informed and misleading.
there is no need to group all Americans into one group of “in-bred”’s…were aren’t all ignorant
I disergre becase the welsh are the decendents of the eraly celtic peoples who ocupied the reageon long before the angelo-saxens came and there is no prof that the modern engelish are the decendents of celtic peoples.
Althogh it is posible that since thay all speak engelish their may be a conection betwen the 4 lands
Danyon:
For Pete’s sake – they speak English now, but did not alway speak the same language. Welch is spoken today in Wales, as well as Irish Gaelic and Scot Gaelic in other parts of the British isles. Do your homework.