[stonewall]

Going off the subject a bit. Maybe you could enlighten me. Many years ago, a man
mentioned to me that the eyes are not only 'the window of the soul',but tell what race a person originally came from.

He said that anybody who had brown eyes, was of the Asian or Negro race,no matter how white their skin was or their features were Causcasian.

I thought it might be right,as you don't see to many blue-eyed people in the Asian or Negro people.

In a movie called 'True Love' or True Romance' something like that. There was a scene in which Christopher Walken, a Mafia man was questioning Dennis Hopper as to the whereabouts of some money that 'belonged' to the Mafia. Hopper knew that he was gonna get shot, no matter what. So, he started to rile Walken, by saying that he did a lot of reading and he had read that the Italians had become swarthy, because of all the negroes coming across from Africa and having sex he didn't put it quite as nice as that] with the Italian women. He added before this happened the Italians were fair.

[cathal_campbell_shaw]

In general Caucasian babies are born with blue eyes because at the time of birth they haven't begun to produce melanin in their irises. Their eyes may change to green, brown or other colors as melanin production begins.

http://www.seps.org/...q/eyecolor.html

The Moors ruled the Mediterranean for hundreds of years and have influenced the genetic makeup of people there. These influences have found there way to the north to a lesser extent.

http://baz.perlmonk....haplogroups.jpg

[stonewall]

THANKS for the information. I'm still a we bit puzzled. But thanks again anyway.

[NornIrn]

Interesting - got sent this amusing piece title 'the noble Pict' by a Scottish friend of mine

To true

The Serbs and Croats are genetically very close, as are the semite races of Israelis and Palestinians.

Like the UlsterScots and the Irish these peoples generally dislike each other and would never accept being forced to unite together.

[cathal_campbell_shaw]

>>Like the UlsterScots and the Irish these peoples generally dislike each other and would never accept being forced to unite together.

Speak for yourself because I don't generally dislike Irish people. I live in Tyrone and most people in this county are native Irish. Are you saying that it is normal for me to dislike most of my neighbours? My father is a farmer and if he disliked his Catholic neighbours he'd be in big trouble, because farmers are very dependant on each others help around here. Anyway I don't think its correct to say that Ulster Scots generally dislike native Irish and vice-versa.

Also, is it not fair to say that Ulster-Scots and Native Irish live united in the US, Canada, the Republic or Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa? Also, there was a time when many Ulster Scots would have considered themselves Irish, taking 1798 as an example. Of course no one was forcing them, and I certainly don't what to see my fellow Ulster Scot being dictated to from London, Dublin or Brussels.

>>AND OF COURSE COULD JUST AS EASILY BE FROM THE NORTH OF ENGLAND

Well, the north of England has a strong R1B population also.

Genetic Survey Reveals Hidden Celts Of England -
Note they are confusing Stone Age with Celt in this article.

http://www.freerepub...ws/584960/posts

[Mc1]

Cahal
I like your genetic stuff. Good to have info on aboard without a massive political spin on it.
I see you're from Tyrone. My ancestors were in part from Moy/Benburb/Grange area. They were Sands and Sloanes by surname. Just wondering if these are common names in the area. They were Cof I.
Also names like Sloane are Gaelic in origin but is there any way of knowing whether they come from Scots Gallic or from Irish?

[BlackMouth]

Cahal
I like your genetic stuff. Good to have info on aboard without a massive political spin on it.
I see you're from Tyrone. My ancestors were in part from Moy/Benburb/Grange area. They were Sands and Sloanes by surname. Just wondering if these are common names in the area. They were Cof I.
Also names like Sloane are Gaelic in origin but is there any way of knowing whether they come from Scots Gallic or from Irish?

Sure Sloane is Pictish???

[BlackMouth]

>>Like the UlsterScots and the Irish these peoples generally dislike each other and would never accept being forced to unite together.

Speak for yourself because I don't generally dislike Irish people. I live in Tyrone and most people in this county are native Irish. Are you saying that it is normal for me to dislike most of my neighbours? My father is a farmer and if he disliked his Catholic neighbours he'd be in big trouble, because farmers are very dependant on each others help around here. Anyway I don't think its correct to say that Ulster Scots generally dislike native Irish and vice-versa.

I agree - I'm sure Croatians and Serbians, and Israelis and Palestinians don't all hate each other - in many cases they live side by side and depend on each other - it is true though, like the Ulster-Scots and the Irish they distrust one another and refuse to be united and absorbed into the others nation

[Mc1]

Sure Sloane is Pictish??? 

Linguistically I believe it's common Gaelic in origin.
Whether it came into common from Pictish, I don't know.
I think it relates to a word for "host" or "multitude".If the root is found in both modern variants of q Celtic i.e in Gaelic and Scots Gallic (forgetting Manx)
it may be uncertain whether it's arisen as a surname in Ireland or Scotland. I wondered if Cathal might know.

[UlsterScot]

Scottish - also North of England

http://freepages.gen.../sloan/coa.html

O'Sluaigheain in catholic Ireland.

Very nice Coat of Arms



Gaelic version means warrior

[Mc1]

Thanks US
Read thru briefly. Seems In Ireland to have a local origin i.e. not reimported from Scotland. Interesting that SloanE is claimed to be a Presbyterian variant.

[stonewall]

Some folk are under the misapprehension that the gaelic name is always the original. Some gaelic names, are an adaption of an original name from another country. One I know of is Liam which is from the German for William.

[stonewall]

[QUOTE]was a time when many Ulster Scots would have considered themselves Irish, taking 1798 as an example.

Iam a Ulster-Scot Presbyterian. I would like to know when Protestants started to adopt the appellation----irish. I have read a few books about the siege of Londonderry in them all the people inside the walls are called either Defenders, Williamites, or Protestants. Those attacking Londonderry are referred to as the
Jacobites,Irish or Catholics.

The Comber Letter warns 'suffer no Irish to come near you'. So that would take us up to 1688 at least.

In 'Ulster Sails West' by the Rev W.F. Marshall a Dr Clark of Cahans arrived in 1764 with 300 of his congregation. The book then goes on to state '' Moreover,it is interesting to note that they did not regard themselves as Irish. In fact,nothing infuriated them more than to be classed as Irish''

I have read of some Ulster immigrants arriving off the boat and objecting strongly to being labelled as 'irish'
So if we get to say the mid/late 1700s. They still didn't like being called irish.

I can't really set a definite date as to when Protestants adapted the irish appellation which their forebears had vigoriously opposed. But, I'm of the opinion that it was the United Irishmen who brought this change about. They were mostly Presbyterian[sorry to say] and they pushed this line of ''we are all one''. Iam very proud to be an Ulster-Scot, and Presbyterian,but it seems to me they were responsible to a large degree for the loss of our identity as a people in our own right.

P.S. When I say that the United Irishman were mostly Presbyterian. I mean in Ulster.

[Mc1]

Stonewall
You're right about names. Foley and Burke woulde be good examples. Same goes of course in English - Gascoigne, Montgomery etc.- all Norman originally.

Not so sure about what you're saying on the word Irish. Protestants encompass people of many ethnicities in Ireland not just Ulster Scots. Around 1700 they may have been purer bred of course. Many of the signatories of Carson's solemn covenant had Irish Gaelic surnames. Carson himself considered himself Irish, but also British.
Are Alex Higgins Irish or James Galway or Kenneth Branagh Irish? What about the Unionist politician Kennedy? Or Murphy the Shankhill butcher? If there's a large Gaelic Irish element to Ulster Protestant lineage shouldn't you be proud and feel that this is a vindication of your rootedness in Ireland. After all some extremists on the other side would say you don't belong precisely because you're not Irish.

[stonewall]

I believe one of the main 'buzz words' is diversity. Why this obession with irishness
if I percieve myself to be Ulster/Ulster Scots that's my prerogative. Surely if on the British mainland they can accept and actively promote three different identities
Then, on this island we can have two. If those Protestants who have taken on the name of irish,feel more at home with that appellation O.K. fine, thats their choice.

You mention a few personalities with irish surnames. Certainly in later times there was a mixing of the two peoples,but then of course the people you mention mothers or grandmothers may have been of Ulster-Scots stock.

If those who say I don't belong, because I won't accept their perspective of of the situation here. Well I won't lose any sleep over that. It shows how narrow minded
they are,and how they are unable to accept diversity on this island.

The Rev.Dr John MacIntosh of Philadelphia and an Ulsterman made this statement
''From Derry to Down I have lived with them. Every town and hamlet from the Causeway to Carlingford is familar to me it has been said that the Ulster-Scots mingled with the Celt-----The Ulster-Scots mingled freely with the English Puritans and with the refugee Huguenots;but so far as my search of state papers and old manuscripts,examination of old parish registers and years of personal talk with and study of Ulster folk disclosed--the Scots did not mingle to any appreciable extent with the so called celtic native Irish. ''To this very hour,in the remoter parts of Antrim and Down the country folk will tell you ''WERE NO EERISH BOT SCOATCH'' all their folklore all their tales, their traditions, their songs, their poetry,their heroes and heroines, and their home speech is of the oldest Scots Lowland types and times.

As I said, there are those who have moved away from the above situation and have taken on the mantle of Irishness. Good luck to them. But, those of us who value and treasure our Ulster-Scots history heritage and culture will be proud to carry on that tradition.

[Mc1]

[

“This isn’t consistent with the idea of a large invasion here around 500BC,” said Bradley. “You would expect some more affinity with central Europe if we owed the bulk of our ancestry to a movement from central Europe but we don’t.”

Some archeologists also doubt there was a Celtic invasion because few of their artifacts have been found in Ireland.

Cathal,
How do they know that gene types now common in Ireland, Scotland etc. were not once more common in the Celtic heartland of central Europe and then lost as Germans, Slavs, Magyars etc spread out?

[cathal_campbell_shaw]

Hi again all.

The name Doyle is associated with the Vikings of Dublin. Yet it's a Gaelic name. Liam is also a Gaelic name, despite the fact that it comes from the name William. The Gaelic names Sean and Ian are associated with the English name John. Cathal is associated with the English Charles. The McSherrys were a Norman family, but have a Gaelic surname. The surname O'Seoige is the Gaelic form of the Norman name Joyce. The surname Gallagher, one of the largest Gaelic surnames in Ulster, translates as "foreign help" and is associated with the Gallowglasses, who if I remember correctly were Norse mercenaries from the Western Isles of Scotland. In other words, many people arriving in Ireland were absorbed into Gaelic culture. The Normans are described as being more Gaelic than the Gaelic themselves, and the county in Ireland were the Gaelic sport Hurling is most prominent, just happens to have a Norman city as its capital.

http://www.kilkenny.ie/

>>O'Sluaigheain in catholic Ireland.

I think you ment O'Sluaigheain in Gaelic. There are plenty of Prods out there with a "cupla focail" of Gaelic and plenty of Catholic with none.

>>Sure Sloane is Pictish???

As I said before, the Picts, Gaels and Britons are the Stone Age civilizations of these islands. They spoke very similar languages, with the Picts and Britons having more in common linguistically. Genetically these people were identical, with their members belonging to the R1B haplogroup. This haplogroup is associated with the first inhabitants of Europe who took refuge in Iberia during the Ice Age.

>>Also names like Sloane are Gaelic in origin but is there any way of knowing whether they come from Scots Gallic or from Irish?

There are so many Scottish and Irish descendants sharing the same surname. My surname Campbell for example can be of native Irish-Gaelic. In fact that family came from Tyrone so I might well belong to this family. I simply don't know.

http://baz.perlmonk....i?name=Campbell



Other surnames include names like Hunter, Smith, Kennedy, Reid, and Martin - all very common in Ulster. To be honest with you it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I know what I am. I'm Ulster Scots, but I have things in common with people from Scotland and Ireland also. Ulster-Scots is a culture not a unique genetic group. Genetically we are as closely related to the general Irish population as we are to the general Scottish population. You also have "Protestant versions" of native Irish surnames, Quin and Quinn for example.

>>Sands and Sloanes

Try here - just enter the surname and set the postcode as BT
http://www2.bt.com/e...ace=coexistence

and you can try this for the south -
http://www.goldenpag.../phonebook.html


>> Not so sure about what you're saying on the word Irish.

The people of the island of Ireland are Irish as far as I'm concerned - its got nothing to do with politics or religion. If you read the history of the Ulster-Scots in Ireland it is quite clear why many regarded themselves as Irish. My father is an Orangeman, but personally I have no interest in them. This is partially due to the fact that I see them as an Anglican invention, created in opposition to the United Irishmen who were primarily Presbyterian. People of my religion were only permitted into the Orange Order in 1834. Presbyterians did not gain religious freedom after the Battle of the Boyne yet so many of us celebrate it. Ulster Scots left Ulster for the U.S. because of religious discrimination; the exact motivation behind the Puritans leaving in such large numbers. This is how I look at. I can say without doubt that my ancestors suffered thanks to the regime that took power after the Battle of the Boyne, and I refuse to celebrate anything that can be associated with this suffering. Also, I dont believe that I have more in common with Anglicans than I do with Roman Catholics. The Catholic Church has been very vocal against gay marriages, while the Anglicans are split on the issue. This is a fundamental issue. Also, on the abortion issue, the island of Ireland is the only place left in Europe where abortion is not permitted. That says a lot about what we have in common morally. Yet, the Orange Order excludes people who share the same moral values as I do. I don't understand why, if this is supposed to be a religious organisation. I don't expect many people on this forum to share my views, but more and more young Ulster-Scots are of this opinion.

"Charles II believed in moderation and Catholics, Anglicans and Protestants
were allowed comparative freedom of worship. The rebellion against his
succesor James II in England was a blow to creating a 'liberal regime' in
Ireland. James II's parliament sitting in Dublin in 1689 had tried to
abolish all religious discrimination by passing Acts XIII and XV, in which
all religions were declared equal under law; and that each priest, minister
or vicar should be supported by his own congregation, and no tithes should
be levied upon any person for a church to which they did not belong.
"Today there is an Ulster Unionist myth that the victory of William of
Orange brought in a "new era of religious freedom" in Ireland. It is a
central part of the Ulster unionist catechism. Yet exactly the reverse
happened. After William's victory only the Anglican [Anglo-Catholic- neither
RC nor Protestant] religion was recognized by law. This was the minority
sect in ireland. The majority of colonists in Ulster were presbyterian Scots
as their descendants are. Presbyterian ministers were liable to three months
in jail for delivering a sermon and fined £100 (pounds) (a staggering sum
for a day when you could live on £40 a year) for celebrating the Lord's
supper. Presbyterians were punished if they were discovered to have been
married by a Presbyterian minister. An act in 1704 excluded all
Presbyterians from holding office in the law, army, navy, customs and excise
or in municipal employment. In 1715 a further parliamentary act made it an
offence for Presbyterian ministers to teach children. the punishment was
three months in gaol. Intermarriages between Presbyterians and Anglicans
were made illegal. As late as 1772 it was confirmed by law that jail
sentences would be hande out to Presbyterian who were caught holding
services. Thus did William of Orange's ''religious freedom'' apply tot those
Ulstermen who so enthusiastically celebrate his victories today.
"Willam's religious laws caused some 250,000 protestants to emigrate to
America between the years 1717 and 1776 alone, in order to seek religious
freedom. It was these Ulsterment and their children who were going to play a
prominent part in the American war of independance. Ulster protestants
provided 19 revolutionary generals while five signed the declaration fo
independance, four served in Washington's first cabinet- and one was
chairman of the committee who drafted the American constitution. The first
governors of South Carolina, Pennsylvania and New Jersey were Ulster
protestants, and the children of ulster protestants supplied no less than 10
American presidents.
"It was these sam Protestant dissenters who through their acceptance of
the republican creed in America transported it to ireland. The United
Irishmen formed in Belfast in 1791, became the first major Irish radical,
and nationalist movement under the Protestant lawyer Theobald Wolfe Tone.
Their "Secret Manifesto to the Friends of Freedom in Ireland" was avowedly
democratic, urging universal suffrage and total religious freedom. Tone's
famous "An Address to the Irish People" published in Belfast in 1796,
declared that the "doctrine of republicanism will finally subvert that of
monarchy and establish a system of justice and rational liberty on the ruins
of the despots of Europe"
"In 1794, a United Irishmen document declared that the Ulster
protestants ''were the most enlightened in the nation... the dissenters are
enemies to English power from reason and reflection, the Catholics from
hatred of the English name." Of Ulster Protestants "They are steady
republicans, devoted to liberty and through all the stages of the French
revolution have been enthusiatically attached to it".
"The Unity of dissenters and Catholics into the widespread United
Irishmen movement, which attempted its revolution in 1798, was a severe
shock to the English administration. Commenting on republican ideology, Hugh
Boulter, Anglican archbishop of Armagh, wrote to PM William Pitt that "the
worst of this is that it stands to unite papist and protestant and whenever
this happens goodbye to the English interest in ireland forever". After the
suppression of the 1798 uprising and the union of parliaments conveniently
in1800, steps were considered on how to drive a wedge between the two
communities, especially when Protestants were at the forefront of the
attempted uprising in 1803. Obviously, Catholics were in the majority so
Penal laws enacted against them by William remained. It was the
presbyterians who were singled out for special treatment. The first step was
a Regium Donum of £75 to all Presbyterian ministers who declared their
"loyalty". By March 30th 1805 only two ministers had taken the bribe. The
restrictions on the Presbyterians began to be lifted although it was not
until 1834 that the Anglican orange order opened its ranks to dissenters and
presbyterians were able to swamp the order. The former anti-unionists had
been bribed, cajoled and propogandized into the most strongly unionist
elements in the country. Even so many protestants featured prominnently in
later republican leadership into this century."
Peter Berresford Ellis

>>How do they know that gene types now common in Ireland, Scotland etc. were not once more common in the Celtic heartland of central Europe and then lost as Germans, Slavs, Magyars etc spread out?

Good question. The word Celt comes from the word Keltoi which is Greek for Barbarian. It was used by the Greeks to refer to those people of central and north western Europe. The word Celt is also used to describe the first wave of Indo-Europeans who brought Iron to Europe, 3,000 years ago.

Genetically we belong primarily to a group of people who lived in Iberia 30,000 years ago. After the Ice Age these people began moving up along the Atlantic coast, arriving eventually in Ireland. They also spread into central Europe and today the majority of Western Europeans belong to this group. Latter, Neolithic, Romani and Jewish peoples arrived from the East and Moors from the South. This has resulted in a cline across Europe such that the further west you travel into Europe, the more Stone Age the people are in ancestry. Once upon a time all the people of Europe were Stone Age.

The word Celtic is quite confusing in today’s world, now that we have genetics to support where people originate from. Personally I think its easier for me to think of myself as being Stone Age European or Proto-European in racial terms rather than Celtic which seems to mean different things to different people. Also, the Picts are not referred to as Celtic, yet the Gaels and Britons are. This doesn't make any sense considering how closely related all 3 groups are to each other.