blood of the irish

Kat Slater

Saw the first episode of this and it was OK. Why did they have Diarmuid Gavin as a presenter, he was useless in this kind of a programme. Why not get someone who actually knows about the subject, like the way the BBC would have Robert Winston for this sort of programme.

shqipshume

Camelot wrote: »

Well it was a bit like watching paint dry, first we learned that Britain was populated long long before the island of Ireland . . .

Britain has signs of Human activity going back 700.000 years, but Ireland only has a Human history of 10.000 years, so then the speculation began > did some ancient people come across from Wales? (maybe this was the answer), but did they sail across or did they walk across the land bridge from Britain to Ireland? (possibly), but maybe the land bridge had gone by then)? so where did the first Irish people come from?

Well apparently we all came from the Basque region of Spain (not just the Irish), but because Ireland is the last stop before the atlantic (just like a Cul-De-Sac) the Basqueues congregated here, and then after wave after wave of other invaders came to Ireland from the island next door & from further afield including France & central Europe.

The only conclusive proof of the Basque connection came from a 3500 year old childs bone found in a cave in Limerick, so although we know that we have a Basque connection with that bone 3500 years ago, we still dont know where our original ancestors came from 9000 or 10.000 years ago!

This documantary prooved nothing to me really, apart from the fact that Diarmuid has a genetic marker from the Alps, and he really struggles with his THs

Yeah with the whole basque thing.he said already we traveled there not we orignated from there.Just means some of the people who we are orignally related to just some remained there and leaving a genetic connection there.
Basque people do not look like Irish people for majority.
Did people not see their face shapes.

I agree it wasnt a search for true origins of Irish blood was just about basque relations

EamonnKeane

Kai wrote: »

Complete rubbish, Speaking as a Kilkenny person its nothing to do with genetics, most of the people i know have at least one parent from different counties. I would reckon only a tiny fraction of the genetic makeup from people who lived in the area during norman times is still within the current population of the county. Ireland is small and people move around a lot...

Blaming your losses on genetic inferiority is a poor excuse

He doesn't mean it's genetic, he means Old English landlords contributed to a stronger sporting tradition that the culture of these counties have maintained. It is odd that all the hurling counties (except Antrim) form a clear band from Wexford to Clare.

The show itself seems like nonsense, some quack trying to force a theory. Migration didn't begin in 1845, there has always been an exchange of people across Ireland, Britain, Europe and beyond.

Considering the amount of immigration from Vikings, Normans, Scots in Ulster, English and the accompanying slaughter of the existing native population - throw in the catastrophe of the Famine too with its emmigration effects - then its unlikely the majority of us can be traced back to Celtic or even early Christian Ireland.

There was no Viking or Norman genocide, and the Scots drove people south and west, they didn't kill them. If you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, by 1,000 years ago (30 generations) you have a billion branches on the family tree, so you'd easily find Jews, Chinese, Egyptians, Germans etc. somewhere