So far, the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI) team has identified 10 distinct clusters, roughly mirroring ancient provinces and the impact of the invasions of the Vikings and the Ulster Plantations. In Munster, the genetic kinship links date back to two 10th-century “Gaelic” clusters linked to the kingdoms of Dál Cais and the Eóganacht. Population geneticists and genealogists collected DNA samples from 196 Irish people with four generations of ancestry linked to specific areas across the island of Ireland. There are high levels of “northwest French-like” (probably Celtic) and “west Norwegian-like” (probably Viking) ancestry within Ireland. Paying tribute to the Genealogical Survey of Ireland, Prof Cavalleri says it had helped them to track down people “who could demonstrate that all eight of their great-grandparents had been born within 50km of each other”.

Source: The Irish Times December 08, 2017 18:45 UTC