Ireland's regional ancestry modeled using British populations.

[Sikeliot]

Not sure what BWA, SWA, NWA stand for, but this models Irish regions with other British Isles populations. All of Ireland can be modeled primarily with southern Scotland type ancestry. But the percentages differ.

The challenge here is that they are trying to model all of Irish ancestry with only British Isles clusters, which means Norman, Viking, and Germanic ancestry is getting absorbed by other clusters. Still, this is what we see:

Overall, Scottish-like ancestry is higher the further north you go in Ireland, while English-like ancestry increases in the southeast, south, and Connacht. However, all regions of Ireland except Wexford are more Scottish-like than English-like.

NW Ulster and North Leinster/Ulster, unsurprisingly, owe the largest share of ancestry of all Irish clusters to Scotland, making up over 70%. Affinity to the English clusters Cheshire, Kent, SE England, Devon, and Cornwall are low.

Connacht has greater English-like ancestry and less Scottish-like ancestry than the above, but primarily associated with Cheshire, not with the SE England cluster. There is some affinity to Kent, however, which is also in SE England.

Central Leinster and South Leinster/Munster have more Scottish-like ancestry than Connacht but less than NW Ulster and Northern Leinster/Ulster, and similar amounts of English-like ancestry as Connacht.

Wexford, also in Leinster province but separated here for its genetic distinctiveness, has only about 40% Scottish-like ancestry and almost 30% of ancestry in the SE England cluster, which makes this region an outlier for Ireland. This should not be a surprise given a large Anglo-Norman presence and, until recently, a very archaic form of Old English survived there called "Yola" which is a descendant of the early English spoken by the Normans.

N Munster, SW Munster, and Cork have less Scottish-like ancestry and more English-like ancestry than Leinster and Connacht. Of these, Cork has more affinity to Cheshire and less to SE England than the other clusters.


https://www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...1/230797-7.pdf

[Bobby Martnen]

Connacht has greater English-like ancestry and less Scottish-like ancestry than the above, but primarily associated with Cheshire, not with the SE England cluster. There is some affinity to Kent, however, which is also in SE England.

I really think they're only sampling part of Connaught. They should study Galway separately, my great-grandmother was from there and her parents could only speak Irish, not English. To me, it seems unlikely that they have any English admixture at all.

Germans are probably closer to Englishmen genetically than either group is to Irish.

[Sikeliot]

These are my personal estimates from looking at the bar chart for each region. I do not know what BWA, NWA, SWA mean so I am calling them other.

NW Ulster: 74% Scottish, 14% English, 12% other
N Leinster/Ulster: 77% Scottish, 2% English, 21% other
Connacht: 64% Scottish, 28% English, 8% other
Central Leinster: 65% Scottish, 26% English, 9% other
S Leinster/Munster: 53% Scottish, 38% English, 9% other
Wexford: 42% Scottish, 38% English, 10% other
N Munster: 54% Scottish, 30% English, 16% other
SW Munster: 50% Scottish, 31% English, 19% other
Cork: 50% Scottish, 37% English, 13% other

[Sikeliot]

I really think they're only sampling part of Connaught. They should study Galway separately, my great-grandmother was from there and her parents could only speak Irish, not English. To me, it seems unlikely that they have any English admixture at all.

Germans are probably closer to Englishmen genetically than either group is to Irish.

Connacht is well sampled. Normans in Connacht who spoke English upon arrival ended up assimilating to the native Irish culture.

[Grace O'Malley]

These are my personal estimates from looking at the bar chart for each region. I do not know what BWA, NWA, SWA mean so I am calling them other.

NW Ulster: 74% Scottish, 14% English, 12% other
N Leinster/Ulster: 77% Scottish, 2% English, 21% other
Connacht: 64% Scottish, 28% English, 8% other
Central Leinster: 65% Scottish, 26% English, 9% other
S Leinster/Munster: 53% Scottish, 38% English, 9% other
Wexford: 42% Scottish, 38% English, 10% other
N Munster: 54% Scottish, 30% English, 16% other
SW Munster: 50% Scottish, 31% English, 19% other
Cork: 50% Scottish, 37% English, 13% other

BWA is Border Wales
NWA is North Wales
SWA is South Wales

[Grace O'Malley]

Connacht is well sampled. Normans in Connacht who spoke English upon arrival ended up assimilating to the native Irish culture.

Yes they went native and became "more Irish than the Irish themselves". Even a place like Galway is called Galway of the Tribes after the merchant families of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D'Arcy, Deane, Font, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris and Skerritt. Of the fourteen families, twelve were of Norman-origin, two were Normanised Irish Gaels in their paternal ancestry (the D'Arcy or Ó Dorchaidhe and Kirwan or Ó Ciardhubháin families).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes_of_Galway

[Sikeliot]

Yes they went native and became "more Irish than the Irish themselves". Even a place like Galway is called Galway of the Tribes after the merchant families of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D'Arcy, Deane, Font, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris and Skerritt. Of the fourteen families, twelve were of Norman-origin, two were Normanised Irish Gaels in their paternal ancestry (the D'Arcy or Ó Dorchaidhe and Kirwan or Ó Ciardhubháin families).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes_of_Galway

Why in this study doesn't south Munster seem like an outlier but in the other it did?

[Grace O'Malley]

Why in this study doesn't south Munster seem like an outlier but in the other it did?

I never would have said that south Munster was an outlier in the other study. All Irish regions are extremely close. The differences are slight. They mention this in the study.

As expected, and consistent with the fineStructure analyses and previous estimates18,21, genetic differentiation across Ireland and Britain is subtle, with the greatest genetic distances between Orcadian and non-Orcadian clusters (mean Fst = 0.0032). Ulster appears to be an outlier relative to the other ‘Gaelic’ Irish clusters, consistent with its position in PCA (Supplementary Fig. 2). The Gaelic clusters exhibit fine differentiation between each other (average Fst = 0.00030; average Fst excluding outlier Ulster = 0.00024) which is comparable to the differentiation we see between English clusters (average Fst = 0.00031; average Fst excluding outlier Cornwall I = 0.00024). This level of differentiation is finer than what we observe within Wales (average Fst = 0.00138), or Scotland (average Fst = 0.00250). The level of differentiation we observe in the island of Ireland (Fst = 0.0003), Gaelic and N Ireland clusters included, is almost an order of magnitude smaller than what we observe within clusters found across Great Britain, excluding Orkney (Fst = 0.00135).

I think the Insular Celtic study goes into more depth and has more information so I feel it is the better of the two. I think both are excellent because no other studies have looked at all areas of Ireland and broken down admixture like these studies.

[Sikeliot]

I never would have said that south Munster was an outlier in the other study. All Irish regions are extremely close. The differences are slight. They mention this in the study.


I think the Insular Celtic study goes into more depth and has more information so I feel it is the better of the two. I think both are excellent because no other studies have looked at all areas of Ireland and broken down admixture like these studies.

In the other study it seemed like South Munster deviated more than Ulster but here it is Ulster and North Leinster due to less ancestry matching England.

[Bobby Martnen]

Yes they went native and became "more Irish than the Irish themselves". Even a place like Galway is called Galway of the Tribes after the merchant families of Athy, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, D'Arcy, Deane, Font, Ffrench, Joyce, Kirwan, Lynch, Martin, Morris and Skerritt. Of the fourteen families, twelve were of Norman-origin, two were Normanised Irish Gaels in their paternal ancestry (the D'Arcy or Ó Dorchaidhe and Kirwan or Ó Ciardhubháin families).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribes_of_Galway

None of those surnames are present in my family.