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From: "Tony O'Shaghnessy" <>
Subject: [DNA-R1B1C7] Sectarianism & R1b2c7
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2008 03:12:58 +0100

>From Tony O'Shaughnessy R1b1b2e



Congratulations to Linda Merle on her contribution to the "Sectarian" discussion.



My comments below are made from the limitations of my Gaelic Irish Catholic background, looking out at other world views opened up to me through DNA testing. The context is also the narrow one of the R1b1b2e connection between Ireland & Scotland and the predominance of R1b1b2e in the Northern Half of Ireland, that is the half dominated in ancient times by the Gaelic Connachta elite.



Further investigation of R1b1b2e may reveal whether or not R1b1b2e originated either in Scotland, Ireland or perhaps elsewhere. In the meantime the DNA evidence is daily enhancing the close Scots and Irish connection. It is also revealing that people who would see themselves as having different political, religious and apparently tribal backgrounds in Ireland and Scotland nevertheless are sharing very similar DNA.

It is therefore appropriate to discuss the historical Sectarianism that has so often divided people that DNA testing is now revealing as genetically very near next of kin.



The evidence for the traffic of people & goods between what is today Scotland and Ireland is as old as the earliest Mesolithic archaeological record. Scotland derives its name from the Celtic word Scotti meaning Raider, which was the word used by the Romans and Romanised Britons to describe the Irish.

These Irish or Scotti Raiders & Slavers swarmed all over the Northern & Western Borders of Roman Britain as the Empire moved towards collapse. In time the Leaders of these Scotti (most probably R1b1b2e) founded the Kingdom of Scotland and gave the territories of the aboriginal Picts & Caladonians a new name, i.e. Scotland. For a period the Northern Half of Ireland (Leath Cuinn) and what is now modern Scotland became a Gaelic Commonwealth.



In medieval times the Gaelic Irish Lords in Ireland were given to bringing Scots onto their lands

both as Tenants and Fighting Men. Scots Mercenaries from the Western Isles founded family groups that are today regarded as quintessentially Irish.



The bringing of Catholic Scots and Non-Conformist Calvinist Presbyterian Scots into Ireland during the various 17th Century Plantations of Ulster both relieved the English Crown of troublesome Scots Borderers and inadvertently introduced the native Royalist Catholic & Protestant Irish to notions of Democracy and Republicanism. Some of these Scots may in many cases have been returning to the Motherland of their Ancestors. The term Scots-Irish is tautological since the word Scot strictly means Irish.



While many Catholic Scots and Irish initially benefited from the Ulster Plantations they began to suffer adverse discrimination as time and events moved on.

Many non-conformist and free-thinking Protestant Ulster Scot-Irish suffered almost as much under the English Royalist and Cromwellian Commonwealth Establishments as did their Catholic neighbours.

Again many non-conformist Ulster Protestants did not greatly benefit either from the post Williamite Settlement. Scots-Irish who emigrated to North America were conspicuous in the rebellion against Britain and in the founding of the U.S.A. The 1798 Rebellion against the English Ascendancy Establishment in Ireland was intellectually engined by free-thinking Ulster Protestant Scots-Irish with a Democratic Republican vision.

Many R1b1b2e Irish of Catholic Southern Irish background would not be over conscious of the great similarities they share with their Protestant Scots-Irish and Ulster Scots R1b1b2e cousins.

Probably the same would apply the other way around. Scotland was a refuge for the mainly Catholic Irish following the 19th Centaury Irish Famines. Despite the lapse of time many of these would still see themselves as Irish.



Modern Scholarship is showing that the terms Catholic or Protestant, Scots or Irish and and Ulster Scots or Scots-Irish do not necessarily describe homogenous Sectarian social monopolies. Real Life seems to be more complicated than conventionally handed down dogmatic Sectarian assumptions. My DNA signature relates me more closely to many people with Protestant Ulster Scots or Scots-Irish and British sounding surnames than to others with Gaelic Irish names and obviously Catholic backgrounds. Looking at my near DNA matches I sometime wonder whether I should be supporting Ulster or my native Munster, Ireland or Scotland when it comes to Irish Interprovincial or International Rugby.

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