What do Irish people look like, generally?

zaire · Jun 20, 2007

Celtcrusader said:
hello bythe way,
What i meant by NI being different is that there was a greater infusion of the sandy or blond haired look that ine sees commonly in England.The ulster plantations were far more rigourous and long lasting - so resulting in it being populated by more english and lowland scots as they decided it was safe to stay - if i am wrong in this -you would have had the last 30 yrs of the troubles all over ireland.
The southern plantations werent as successful with most of the planters going home.
So no i wasnt saying there were no celts in NI- but i was saying that more of a share of the english saxon/angle type race stayed on there.
"Iberian" - Do you mean Iberia? this is the spanish portugese peninsula.The celts did not come from there. yes they were in europe and mainly originated in central europe in Bohemia,(ancient land name) this is near the old czechoslovakia -austria area, they then spread to live in western europe but not spain or portugal except perhaps some small communities in galacia ( which would have linguistically something to do with Gael, as in ireland also they may have been in turkey - simly because i notice the football club galatasaray, the root of the name again perhaps giving a clue as to GAEL ,then again it may be just a tenuous link,anyone know?)
yes the vikings raided ireland and some stayed - but they did not raid ALL of ireland and they certainly didnt stay all over ireland ther are some main cities in ireland that becamemuch larger settlements as the vikings adopted them as their new home.but the vikings were finally beaten in the battle of clontarf by brian boru - a celtic warrior king.so the celts were still the main race in ireland as the vikings that stayed became subsumed into the race, but the main features of the celts would still be there to be seen.
Yes the normans came but but the celts subsumed them too - dont get me wrong -this will all have an effect, but you'll still be able to see some celtic features and nowhere more than in ireland where the final gretest concentration of celts came to reside.
Northern ireland is different - and i myself do notice some shapes of faces and complexions that are more common or more easy to find than in dublin or the south.For example the poster Pau_Norn_Iron , I see more people that have that hair colour and facial complexion in NI, than i would in the south - and i have lived in both parts and in many different parts of the island.
I am simply saying that in NI there is more anglo-saxon blood per capita(per head of population) than in the south.Dublin is not a good example as neither or most major cities because of their cosmopolitan nature.

People in Ireland today are mainly are descended from the Celts. But many may also be descended partly or mainly from the Vikings and/or Normans. Then also there are the people that came from Britain, they were Celtic/Viking/Germanic/Europe. So through these people that came from Britain some may also have descent from Germanic people. Also other people from mainland Europe came to Ireland but not in large groups.

So the people from Britain settled better in Ulster so yes they may have a bit more descent from Germanic people there.

Im just saying that everybody in N.Ireland is more Celtic than you make out. Even in England the people may be more Celtic than we think.

The Celts that came to Ireland/Britain came from Iberia.

95% males in Ireland have the of have the Iberian Y-chromosome. English about 58% of males.

Most people in Ireland and Britain have some Celt in them. Some more than others. Especially in Ireland of cource.

I myself am part Celt and part Viking.

The sandy/blond hair is mainly Viking. Also many of the Normans who are part Viking would have had that hair colour.

I think you underestimate the amount of Viking that came to Ireland and Britain even if they lost control of areas they took though.

zaire · Jun 20, 2007

double post, post above wasnt showing, so posted it again and then it appears.

Celtcrusader · Jun 21, 2007

My point was exactly - that the celts are the dominant chromosomes in the peoples of ireland today and of course there is going to be a smattering of germanic,nordic, european chromosomes.Quite a bit - but still quite small compared to the amount of celtic genetic material you will find in an irish person. (note and here is my emphasis - more so in the south than in the north).

I disagree about the vikings and i think you overestimate the amount that STAYED( not shouting just emphasizing).There were large numbers that raided all around the coast but less so on the west to north western coast.Eventually the native irish beat them off( again battle of clontarf). My point here is large numbers may have raided but only a comparatively small amount settled. enough to add to irish settlements that ALREADY existed and leave their mark on those settlements but not enough to sufficiently dilute the celtic chromosomal characteristics.

NI is different because subsequent to the nordic/germanic infusions you have the english /lowland scot infusion which was more successful than in the south.Thus a definite increase in the amount of germanic/nordic looking types.Which is atotally different thing to saying they're Irish - or british, there are many types of background that make up the irish nation- as it is with the british, who also have a strong celtic genetic make-up.After -all the celtic britons were there before the anglo-saxons, e.g;queen boudiccea.

I didnt call into question that there were celts in NI OR that there were a lot of them - what I'm trying to specify is that per capita there may be as many celts in NI as the south BUT there is more successful planting of non-celtic peoples in NI. So per head of population one will see more germanic/nordic types like PAUL_NORN_IRON.i know who the normans were and their northland origins.That they werent originally french.I have taken into account their influence when posting the above arguments.

I disagree about the iberian influence because there were different waves of celts that came to the country.I disagree on the size of that influence.

Rossi · Jun 21, 2007

really unless you have a name beginning with O' or possibly Mac then you are not Celtic

Celtcrusader · Jun 21, 2007

well rossi ,i guess that rules out - flanagans,brannigans,mulligans, Lonergans, donegans,Duggans doyles ,boyles, moriartys, finnegans, and many more.

The ,O, and Mac prefix simply means, from or of - "O". and " son of" = mac. It has bugger all nowadays to show ancient gaelic heritage. The evidence for this is that there are now some Anglo-norman names that have adopted the O or Mac prefix e.g -Finucane = O Fhuinucáin in Irish -finucane is not originally celtic.

This was the period when the anglo-normans became more irish than the irish themselves.

Celtcrusader · Jun 21, 2007

Rossi you think i am referring to normans and saxons and vikings -as being included in what i described as waves of different celts coming to ireland.read my post properly.

what i am referring to are celtic peoples from europe and britain arriving long before the germanic/nordic/normans or plantations occurred.

Celts didnt all arrive together they came in different migrations.

Maxwell511 · Jun 21, 2007

Rossi said:
really unless you have a name beginning with O' or possibly Mac then you are not Celtic

My mum had an anglicized Celtic name that used to have Mac on it. I have a Norman name that I sometimes hibernianize depending on my mood.

Maxwell511 · Jun 21, 2007

Celtcrusader said:
well rossi ,i guess that rules out - flanagans,brannigans,mulligans, Lonergans, donegans,Duggans doyles ,boyles, moriartys, finnegans, and many more.

The ,O, and Mac prefix simply means, from or of - "O". and " son of" = mac. It has bugger all nowadays to show ancient gaelic heritage. The evidence for this is that there are now some Anglo-norman names that have adopted the O or Mac prefix e.g -Finucane = O Fhuinucáin in Irish -finucane is not originally celtic.

This was the period when the anglo-normans became more irish than the irish themselves.

Interesting fact the Mac Padraig's adopted the Normanised version. Fitzpatrick is not of Norman origin.

Celtcrusader · Jun 21, 2007

which highlights the point i was making that ,there was a lot of name mixing and branding of things to suit the occasion. That having or not having an O or a mac doesnt tell much to relevant degree of certainty.
as you showed in your example some gaels attached a 'fitz' which as you said was the normanised version. thus again showing what i was saying - names and their attachments or lack thereof changed. thus not always solely identifying gaels, anglo-irish etc,.

zaire · Jun 22, 2007

Celtcrusader said:
My point was exactly - that the celts are the dominant chromosomes in the peoples of ireland today and of course there is going to be a smattering of germanic,nordic, european chromosomes.Quite a bit - but still quite small compared to the amount of celtic genetic material you will find in an irish person. (note and here is my emphasis - more so in the south than in the north).

I disagree with the part in brackets.

The Viking and Normans settled/inter-married Celts mainly the South.

In the North (though definity not strictly the six counties of NI) the plantations brought people of a mixture of Celtic/Viking/Norman(Viking)/Germanic ancestory. These people did have Celtic ancestory. Some of these people would also have intermarried with people already there.

So i cant see how you make out that in the North it is much less Celtic than the South. It may be but by a degree or two.

Take an area the size of NI and put it around Dublin and prepare the people i think they would be generally the same. Ive been Dublin many a time and the people look the same as the people of Belfast.

It seems that you just look at someone from the North and decide that they dont look a certain way and or so not Celtic or they dont have pure enough blood or something.

Peace.

Celtcrusader · Jul 1, 2007

i didnt say they were less Celtic - read my post carefully. I said they had MORE non celtic infusion, than we had in the south. They have more non-celtic infusion full-stop.

Some other europeans(normans,viking etc -which you are wrong about,but i'll humour you) may have a small percentage of celt genes. But that doesnt change the fact that all these races have a general prominant composition depending on what race they were.

So the celtic race will have more percentage of celtic genes than viking genes before they made it to ireland and then the same after they settled.

if there is more permanent settled planters -in addition to all the other raids to through the centuries then logically there is more addition to the norths populace gene pool of non-celtic genes.

note also in my previous posts i said that cities were not a good indicator of the general populace - because cities are generally more cosmopolitan meaning it has a greater proportion of the non-generic peoples per head -meaning it wont be representative of the rest of the country. this goes for dublin and belfast.try reading the posts.

Nothing to do with purity or whatever you want to call it- just discussing logic - which some people then take as insulting, mainly because they're too sensitive and don't understand when someone is being clinical and non-point scoring with them. Thus they take things as a personal attack on the capabilities of their mental faculties.

zaire · Jul 1, 2007

The Celts and the Nordics (by this term i mean the germanics/scandinavians) are the same race! (The Celts can be classified as the Nordics.)

If you take things back far enough the Nordics and Celts are from the same source. They are the tall fair featured northern race. The Celts group may have had more redish features and the Nordics may have been had more blond features but this wasnt exclusive. They were all fair featured people.

These people lived all over northern Europe.

And thats pretty much how it is today. Take someone from S.Europe (e.g. Spain) and prepare them to someone from N.Europe (e.g. Germany) and you can easily see one's darker featured and one's lighter featured.

The South West of Ireland and South West of Britain has had more Mediterran influence. That is why the people there on the west of Ireland and in Wales are darker and smaller in height.

Us in the NI are more pure the tall light featured northern race.

You need just look at us, we are all quite fair, NI has second largest number of red heads (after scotland) and many fair and brown haired people, also everyone has redish and blond and brown features (eg. if you arent actually a red head but if you grow a bread it will be redish).

NI is pretty much all the Northern Europe race type.

This may seem racist but I do not mean to be racist and will point out there is nothing positive about one type of race type over another. We are all Gods children.

And i will say it once again: the whole of Ireland is basically the same.

Celtcrusader · Jul 1, 2007

the nordic race is not the same as the celtic race. the nordics are germanic, the normans are germanic, the slavs are not germanic -they are slavs. the celts were not germanic they were celts.

The dark skin can come from the spaniards but as stated on a previous post ( it really serves you to read my posts extremely carefully) the race in ireland before the celts were picts - they were dark haired and brown eyed.

I am from the southwest and grew up there. I think i know my own country having lived there -i lived in the north and i lived in dublin, scotland and england.

the people in the SW are no more med looking than the swedes. the general and overwhelming look is brown or mouse coloured hair and blue eyes - you don't live or haven't lived there - you are simply wrong.....anything else you have to say is simply not credible.

NI has more anglo-saxon norman blood than celtic therefore more germanic blood therefore more germanic looking types compared to the south. It still has the same amount of celtic genes but it is overshadowed by the sustained settlement of the germanics - thus more germanics- I dont think you quite grasp what is being said here. The amount of celts is the same in North and south but the amount of germanics is not- north has more.
If you read my posts -you would have read that i already made the point about red-heads seeming to be more abundant in germany and scandinavia than in ireland - and also more abundant in the North proving that the influx of germanics added to any celts that happened to be reds. thus proving the migratory impact was more effective in the north than in the south.
Also illustrating my main point which was that red-heads are typical of a celtic trait. sheer myth and nonsense. My original point - full circle.

zaire · Jul 2, 2007

Celtcrusader said:
the nordic race is not the same as the celtic race. the nordics are germanic, the normans are germanic, the slavs are not germanic -they are slavs. the celts were not germanic they were celts.

The dark skin can come from the spaniards but as stated on a previous post ( it really serves you to read my posts extremely carefully) the race in ireland before the celts were picts - they were dark haired and brown eyed.

I am from the southwest and grew up there. I think i know my own country having lived there -i lived in the north and i lived in dublin, scotland and england.

the people in the SW are no more med looking than the swedes. the general and overwhelming look is brown or mouse coloured hair and blue eyes - you don't live or haven't lived there - you are simply wrong.....anything else you have to say is simply not credible.

NI has more anglo-saxon norman blood than celtic therefore more germanic blood therefore more germanic looking types compared to the south. It still has the same amount of celtic genes but it is overshadowed by the sustained settlement of the germanics - thus more germanics- I dont think you quite grasp what is being said here. The amount of celts is the same in North and south but the amount of germanics is not- north has more.
If you read my posts -you would have read that i already made the point about red-heads seeming to be more abundant in germany and scandinavia than in ireland - and also more abundant in the North proving that the influx of germanics added to any celts that happened to be reds. thus proving the migratory impact was more effective in the north than in the south.
Also illustrating my main point which was that red-heads are typical of a celtic trait. sheer myth and nonsense. My original point - full circle.

Celts were a fair featured people. Blue eyed. Tall. Pall skin. Browny/Redy/Blondy hair features.

The Nordics were a fair featured people. Blue eyed. Tall. Pale skin. Browny/Redy/Blondy hair features.

The Nordics and Celts came from the same source.

It is sometimes said that the white race can be divided into three main race types in Europe.

The Northern European make up one of these types. This is what the Celts, Germanics, Nordics, etc are. The fair featured tall northern people.

The Northern European were tall fair featured people. Just like the most of the people of NI.

The people of NI, most of ROI (mainly excluding some people of S.West + West), Scotland, England, (and other Northern European countries) look more how the Celts looked.

Picts? Arent they just a group of people from Scotland. A people of Celtic origin. As in they were a fair featured people.

I exclude about half the people of S.West + West Ireland because these people are generally darker and smaller than generally the people of Northern and Eastern Ireland.

Maybe the people in Ireland before the Celts where darker. So these charactoristics have survived in the remoter West/South West. Though definate traits through whole population.

And maybe again in the North the more Celtic features look greater because of the similar Nordics coming here. (Though think underestimate the amount of Nordics that came to Ireland excluding West and S.West.)

Say the Celts mainly settled North of Ireland. The kingdom of Ulster was different to the rest even in the old history - mainly Celtic maybe. Then we had people of a mixture of celtic nordic origin come over who are actually v.similar. So NI looking more Celtic make sence.

MusicMelOU · Jul 5, 2007

I've never seen my Irish great-grandfather (who emigrated to the US as a kid) because he passed away before I was born, but some physical characteristics of my grandmother that I believe she got from him were her dark brown (almost black-looking) curly hair, really fair skin, and short stature.

So I am assuming he had dark hair, was not very tall, and fair-complected. As for his eyes I am not sure because she had the same color eyes as her mother (whose ancestry I don't know but I am guessing she is English).

Tyndale · Jul 6, 2007

MusicMelOU said:
I've never seen my Irish great-grandfather (who emigrated to the US as a kid) because he passed away before I was born, but some physical characteristics of my grandmother that I believe she got from him were her dark brown (almost black-looking) curly hair, really fair skin, and short stature.

So I am assuming he had dark hair, was not very tall, and fair-complected. As for his eyes I am not sure because she had the same color eyes as her mother (whose ancestry I don't know but I am guessing she is English).

You're grandmother would probably have been from the Gael stock. Those who migrated to Ireland from Spain in the 4th century. It's hard to define what an Irishman looks like because the Irish are a mixture of the Gael, the Scots and Ulster-Scots, also the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons. However, if I have to stake a claim to what would be the overall look it would be a mixture between the red-headed Scots and the dark haired Gaels from Spain.

Celtcrusader · Jul 10, 2007

bytheway - all or nearly allof your information is contradictory or just plain wrong.

your statements of where the celts came from are wrong- they did not come from the same place as the nordic germanic tribes. This is just simply historically wrong.

your genetic generality of what celts look like is wrong- i think you are more motivated by a desire to wish that people in NI i.e loyalists (who are mainly anglo-saxon not celtic) can be classed as celts. thus when you said i was racially motivated by the need to talk about purity - i think that actually aplies to yourself rather than me.

picts as you unknowingly point out- are not celts- they were the inhabitants of these islands before the celts came, and they actually had dark complexions and black hair - like spaniards. in any case i have explained the truer most general traits of the celtic race in my posts before.

i suggest you read up on the ancient histories of these islands and the origins of the celts etc., and not just from 1690 onwards and other pop-history to fill in the gaps. Being anglo-saxon on this island is nothing to be ashamed of or shouldn't lead to an identity crisis, after all we celts weren't the first to land on this sod- we were just here before you saxons- and as such the island has been in celtic hands longer than any other tribal migrations after that.

You were wrong about your assertion of the vikings and also of the characteristics of the people in the rest of ireland.

again do some reading - i've told you most of the actuality in outline- its up to you now to get the details.
happy researching.

Catrione · Jul 10, 2007

Its odd but you can tell a south western rural Irish person from eastern. People from Galway and Clare and Cork etc are decidedly more rugged looking, possibly because they are maybe more inbred...no really...less population, and back in the day of no transport other than ur feet, you married the people nearby...

Maxwell511 · Jul 11, 2007

Catrione said:
Its odd but you can tell a south western rural Irish person from eastern. People from Galway and Clare and Cork etc are decidedly more rugged looking, possibly because they are maybe more inbred...no really...less population, and back in the day of no transport other than ur feet, you married the people nearby...

Homer Simpson: "Rugged? Is that the same as handsome?"
Diner Chef: "No senor. Handsome means he look at himself in a mirror all day. Rugged means you look at him".

As a person of Galwegian stock, I am honoured that you have such a high opinion of us.

MickeyMcMallen · Nov 10, 2007

Ok, I have some things to say here about the spaniards.

FACTS!

Iberia were made up of three different peoples/groups. The Iberians (light skinned!!!! light eye'd and dark hair) The Celts! yes, Iberia had Celts in the north western part, some of the ancient names are also of Celtic origin. And The Gauls which were of germanic/french barbarians.

Celts were NOT like the Nordics. They were classified as an Alpine type race of dark brown or red hair, light skin and light eyes. Whoever said that Celts and Nords were of the same categorization needs to do ALOT more reading. They are NOT of the same breed/race bloodlines.

Also, I believe alot of you are ignoring the Iberian influence. Dark skin? Keep in mind that the Moors (North african arab nation) had conquered almost all of the Iberian peninsula around 700ad for at least 8 centuries!!! thats 800 years people! The dark skin is not of spaniard/iberian descendance, its of arab. Today's iberian spaniards look completely different to those of over 1,000 years ago.

What do Irish people look like, generally?

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