  Actually, today's Irish like today's Welsh and English come almost entirely from the Germanic tribes that took over England, according to a study from 2006. It doesn't make those happy who like to call themselves Celts, that one Western identity that hasn't been demonized by the Jews, but nevertheless, there it is.  Are you sure about that? Because all of the genetic research I've been seeing about the Irish and British indicates the opposite of what you say. That in fact, the majority of the Irish and British genepool (yes, even the English) is actually of the same ancient stock of the original inhabitants, the people who built the neolithic monuments like Newgrange and Stonehenge and the Ciede Fields. And that the subsequent invasions/migrations of mainland Celts, Romans, Vikings/Normans and Germanic tribes like the Angles, Jutes and Saxons actually didn't have nearly the impact on the native genepool as had previously been thought, that many if not most Irish and British (yes, even the English) are still primarily descended from these ancient people and not mainland Celts or Vikings and Germanic tribes. Some just have more of this ancient lineage than others and less influence from foreign, Germanic/Nordic populations and so they have a darker complection, in Ireland they are of course referred to as Black Irish to distinguish them from their lighter complected countrymen who have more of the mainland Celtic and Germanic/Nordic admixture.   http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/sc...rssnyt&amp;emc=rss   But geneticists who have tested DNA throughout the British Isles are edging toward a different conclusion. Many are struck by the overall genetic similarities, leading some to claim that both Britain and Ireland have been inhabited for thousands of years by a single people that have remained in the majority, with only minor additions from later invaders like Celts, Romans, Angles , Saxons, Vikings and Normans.      In Dr. Oppenheimerâs reconstruction of events, the principal ancestors of todayâs British and Irish populations arrived from Spain about 16,000 years ago, speaking a language related to Basque.     Bryan Sykes, another Oxford geneticist, said he agreed with Dr. Oppenheimer that the ancestors of âby far the majority of peopleâ were present in the British Isles before the Roman conquest of A.D. 43. âThe Saxons, Vikings and Normans had a minor effect, and much less than some of the medieval historical texts would indicate,â he said.