Irish people
The Irish are an ethnic group and nation native to the island of Ireland, who share a common ancestry, history and culture. There have been humans in Ireland for about 33,000 years, and it has been continually inhabited for more than 10,000 years. For most of Ireland's recorded history, the Irish have been primarily a Gaelic people. From the 9th century, small numbers of Vikings settled in Ireland, becoming the Norse–Gaels. Anglo-Normans also conquered parts of Ireland in the 12th century, while England's 16th/17th century conquest and colonisation of Ireland brought many English and Lowland Scots to parts of the island, especially the north. Today, Ireland is made up of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. The people of Northern Ireland hold various national identities including Irish, British or some combination thereof.
The Irish have their own unique customs, language, music, dance, sports, cuisine and mythology. Although Irish was their main language in the past, today most Irish people speak English as their first language. Historically, the Irish nation was made up of kin groups or clans, and the Irish also had their own religion, law code, alphabet and style of dress.
There have been many notable Irish people throughout history. After Ireland's conversion to Christianity, Irish missionaries and scholars exerted great influence on Western Europe, and the Irish came to be seen as a nation of "saints and scholars". The 6th-century Irish monk and missionary Columbanus is regarded as one of the "fathers of Europe", followed by saints Cillian and Fergal. The scientist Robert Boyle is considered the "father of chemistry", and Robert Mallet one of the "fathers of seismology". Irish literature has produced famous writers in both Irish- and English-language traditions, such as Eoghan Rua Ó Súilleabháin, Dáibhí Ó Bruadair, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, W. B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Eavan Boland, and Seamus Heaney. Notable Irish explorers include Brendan the Navigator, Sir Robert McClure, Sir Alexander Armstrong, Sir Ernest Shackleton and Tom Crean. By some accounts, the first European child born in North America had Irish descent on both sides. Many presidents of the United States have had some Irish ancestry.
The population of Ireland is about 6.9 million, but it is estimated that 50 to 80 million people around the world have varying degrees of Irish ancestry. Historically, emigration from Ireland has been the result of conflict, famine and economic issues. People of Irish descent are found mainly in English-speaking countries, especially Great Britain, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. There are also significant numbers in Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, and The United Arab Emirates. The United States has the most people of Irish descent, while in Australia those of Irish descent are a higher percentage of the population than in any other country outside Ireland. Many Icelanders have Irish and Scottish Gaelic ancestors due to transportation there as slaves by the Vikings during their settlement of Iceland.
Origins and antecedents
Prehistoric and legendary ancestors
During the past 33,000 years, Ireland has witnessed different peoples arrive on its shores.Pytheas made a voyage of exploration to northwestern Europe in about 325 BC, but his account of it, known widely in Antiquity, has not survived and is now known only through the writings of others. On this voyage, he circumnavigated and visited a considerable part of modern-day Great Britain and Ireland. He was the first known scientific visitor to see and describe the Celtic and Germanic tribes.
The terms Irish and Ireland are probably derived from the goddess Ériu. A variety of tribal groups and dynasties have inhabited the island, including the Airgialla, Fir Ol nEchmacht, Delbhna, the mythical Fir Bolg, Érainn, Eóganachta, Mairtine, Conmaicne, Soghain, and Ulaid. In the cases of the Conmaicne, Delbhna, and perhaps Érainn, it can be demonstrated that the tribe took their name from their chief deity, or in the case of the Ciannachta, Eóganachta, and possibly the Soghain, a deified ancestor. This practice is paralleled by the Anglo-Saxon dynasties.
One legend states that the Irish were descended from the Milesians, who supposedly conquered Ireland around 1000 BC or later.
Genetics
The key traits of the Irish genome have been borne by people in Ireland since the early Bronze Age, around 4,000 years ago. The world's highest frequencies of the R-L21 Y-chromosome haplotype and lactase persistence are found among people in Ireland.Haplogroup R1b is the dominant haplogroup among Irish males, reaching a frequency of almost 80%. This is also the dominant haplogroup in most of Western Europe. R1b-L21 is the dominant sub-clade throughout Ireland, reaching a frequency of 65%. This subclade is also dominant in Scotland, Wales and Brittany and descends from a common ancestor who lived in about 2,500 BC.
Modern Irish people have a small amount of ancestry from the Early European Farmers who lived in Ireland during the Neolithic. Irish people derive most of their ancestry from Western Steppe Herders who originally came from the Pontic–Caspian steppe and arrived in western Europe during the early Bronze Age.
A recent archaeogenetics study of ancient remains from Ireland found that the older Neolithic farming population was most similar to present-day Sardinians. Meanwhile, three Bronze Age men buried on Rathlin Island between 2000–1500 BC were most similar to present-day Irish people. They all belonged to Haplogroup R-L21 and had the gene for lactase persistence. This shows strong genetic continuity in Ireland from the Bronze Age to the modern era.
It is most likely that these Bronze Age people of the R-L21 haplogroup brought the Bell Beaker culture to Ireland, and it is suggested that they also brought an Indo-European language that was an ancestor to the Insular Celtic and Gaelic languages. Today, R-L21 is the dominant haplogroup throughout the island of Ireland as well as western Scotland, Wales and Brittany. It is therefore associated with the Insular Celtic peoples.
A 2017 genetic study shows that the Irish population can be divided into ten geographic genetic clusters; seven of 'Gaelic' Irish ancestry, and three of shared Irish-British ancestry. The differences between the 'Gaelic' clusters are small, and are "surprisingly faithful to the historical boundaries of Irish provinces and kingdoms". The largest difference is between native 'Gaelic' Irish populations and those of Ulster Protestants known to have recent, partial British ancestry. They were also found to have most similarity to two main ancestral sources: a 'Northwestern France' component which reached highest levels in the Irish and other Celtic populations ; and a 'West Norway' component related to the Viking era.
Irish people have the least amount of ancestry from the Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles at around 10%, which is significantly lower than their Celtic neighbours in Scotland and Wales who have got around 30% of their respective genomes being of Anglo-Saxon origin.
As of 2016, 10,100 Irish nationals of African descent referred to themselves as "Black Irish" in the national census. The term "Black Irish" is sometimes used outside Ireland to refer to Irish people with black hair and dark eyes. One theory is that they are descendants of Spanish traders or of the few sailors of the Spanish Armada who were shipwrecked on Ireland's west coast, but there is little evidence for this.
Irish Travellers
are an ethnic people of Ireland. A DNA study found they originally descended from the general Irish population, however, they are now very distinct from it. The emergence of Travellers as a distinct group occurred long before the Great Famine, a genetic analysis shows. The research suggests that Traveller origins may in fact date as far back as 420 years to 1597. The Plantation of Ulster began around that time, with native Irish displaced from the land, perhaps to form a nomadic population.History
Early expansion and the coming of Christianity
One Roman historian records that the Irish people were divided into "sixteen different nations" or tribes. Traditional histories assert that the Romans never attempted to conquer Ireland, although it may have been considered. The Irish were not, however, cut off from Europe; they frequently raided the Roman territories, and also maintained trade links.Among the most famous people of ancient Irish history are the High Kings of Ireland, such as Cormac mac Airt and Niall of the Nine Hostages, and the semi-legendary Fianna. The 20th-century writer Seumas MacManus wrote that even if the Fianna and the Fenian Cycle were purely fictional, they would still be representative of the character of the Irish people:
The introduction of Christianity to the Irish people during the 5th century brought a radical change to the Irish people's foreign relations. The only military raid abroad recorded after that century is a presumed invasion of Wales, which according to a Welsh manuscript may have taken place around the 7th century. In the words of Seumas MacManus:
Following the conversion of the Irish to Christianity, Irish secular laws and social institutions remained in place.
Migration and invasion in the Middle Ages
The 'traditional' view is that, in the 4th or 5th century, Goidelic language and Gaelic culture was brought to Scotland by settlers from Ireland, who founded the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata on Scotland's west coast. This is based mostly on medieval writings from the 9th and 10th centuries. The archaeologist Ewan Campbell argues against this view, saying that there is no archaeological or placename evidence for a migration or a takeover by a small group of elites. He states that "the Irish migration hypothesis seems to be a classic case of long-held historical beliefs influencing not only the interpretation of documentary sources themselves but the subsequent invasion paradigm being accepted uncritically in the related disciplines of archaeology and linguistics." Dál Riata and the territory of the neighbouring Picts merged to form the Kingdom of Alba, and Goidelic language and Gaelic culture became dominant there. The country came to be called Scotland, after the Roman name for the Gaels: Scoti. The Isle of Man and the Manx people also came under massive Gaelic influence in their history.Irish missionaries such as Saint Columba brought Christianity to Pictish Scotland. The Irishmen of this time were also "aware of the cultural unity of Europe", and it was the 6th-century Irish monk Columbanus who is regarded as "one of the fathers of Europe". Another Irish saint, Aidan of Lindisfarne, has been proposed as a possible patron saint of the United Kingdom, while Saints Kilian and Vergilius became the patron saints of Würzburg in Germany and Salzburg in Austria, respectively.
Irish missionaries founded monasteries outside Ireland, such as Iona Abbey, the Abbey of St Gall in Switzerland, and Bobbio Abbey in Italy.
Common to both the monastic and the secular bardic schools were Irish and Latin. With Latin, the early Irish scholars "show almost a like familiarity that they do with their own Gaelic". There is evidence also that Hebrew and Greek were studied, the latter probably being taught at Iona.
Since the time of Charlemagne, Irish scholars had a considerable presence in the Frankish court, where they were renowned for their learning. The most significant Irish intellectual of the early monastic period was the 9th century Johannes Scotus Eriugena, an outstanding philosopher in terms of originality. He was the earliest of the founders of scholasticism, the dominant school of medieval philosophy. He had considerable familiarity with the Greek language, and translated many works into Latin, affording access to the Cappadocian Fathers and the Greek theological tradition, previously almost unknown in the Latin West.
The influx of Viking raiders and traders in the 9th and 10th centuries resulted in the founding of many of Ireland's most important towns, including Cork, Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford. The Vikings left little impact on Ireland other than towns and certain words added to the Irish language, but many Irish taken as slaves inter-married with the Scandinavians, hence forming a close link with the Icelandic people. In the Icelandic Laxdœla saga, for example, "even slaves are highborn, descended from the kings of Ireland." The first name of Njáll Þorgeirsson, the chief protagonist of Njáls saga, is a variation of the Irish name Neil. According to Eirik the Red's Saga, the first European couple to have a child born in North America was descended from the Viking Queen of Dublin, Aud the Deep-minded, and a Gaelic slave brought to Iceland.
The arrival of the Anglo-Normans brought also the Welsh, Flemish, Anglo-Saxons, and Bretons. Most of these were assimilated into Irish culture and polity by the 15th century, with the exception of some of the walled towns and the Pale areas. The Late Middle Ages also saw the settlement of Scottish gallowglass families of mixed Gaelic-Norse and Pict descent, mainly in the north; due to similarities of language and culture they too were assimilated.