Ireland has its very own Adam, an Irish warlord named Niall of the Nine Hostages — wonder how he got that name! — who is estimated to have more than three million male descendants. (Because of the manner in which the study was conducted, female descendants were not counted.)
"The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland.
"His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16 million descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research.
"’It’s another link between profligacy and power,’ Bradley told Reuters. ‘We’re the first generation on the planet where if you’re successful you don’t (always) have more children.’"
"We’re the first generation on the planet where if you’re successful you don’t (always) have more children."
Right. That’s because modern man has convinced himself that children stand in the way of success. As ancient man well knew but modern man has forgotten, children contribute to a person’s success, they don’t inhibit it.
Niall got his name from the unprecedented feat of having nine royal family members (mostly sons of kings, IIRC) given him as hostages for the treaty compliance of their fathers. (When I say “king”, of course, I mean a ri of a territory in Ireland, not of other countries.)
Niall was known not only for his military prowess in Ireland, but also for raiding outside it. St. Patrick was traditionally held to have been stolen from his home in Bannavem in Britain by some of Niall’s raiders.
Niall was one of the greatest High Kings of Ireland, though, for his consolidation of his power and his founding of the O’Neill dynasty, which ruled various chunks of the north of Ireland up until the early 1600’s. Niall was of course sung about by poet after poet, too.
http://www.irishclans.com/articles/famirish/niall9hostages.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niall_of_the_Nine_Hostages
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/niall.html
Seeing as I’m an O’Brien and there were tons of O’Neill marriages in there, the chances are high that I’m one of those uncounted female descendants!
Well it’s true then. The Irish ARE descendant from Kings.
You know we Scots are Kin to the Irish.:-)
You know, the irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots.
The Scots still haven’t gotten the joke. 😉
As Sean Connery said in “The Longest Day”: “It takes an Irishman to play the pipes.”
Me Mum always said, “there are only 2 kinds of people in the world: those that are Irish, and those that wish they were!” 😉 That’s from a Cronin-O’Shea, don’t ya know!
swdave, just remember: It’s not a sin not to be Irish (Of course, it is a great pity!)
I found a humorous article on this very subject. It’s at “http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s3i10493”.