Scottish or Irish?

Geographically, much of the Western Highlands of Scotland are closer to Ireland than to the Lowlands. As transportation by boat was much easier than travel overland, Northern Ireland would have been comparatively accessible to the West Highlands, and vice versa. While we now see the countries "Northern Ireland" and "Scotland" no such national entities existed until relatively recent times.

Scottish clans in Ireland.

For centuries they were both divided into clan and tribal holdings. Frequently a clan would have property and clanspeople in both. One such example is a branch of Clan Donald known as "Clan Donald of Dunnyveg and the Glens". "Dunnyveg" refers to a castle in the Hebrides while "the Glens" is in Northern Ireland. The lineage of clans in Scotland and and tribes in Ireland show common ancestors. For instance, O'Neill, MacNeil, MacLachlan, MacSweeney and Lamont all descend from King Aodh, King of Ailech (a medieval kingdom in present-day Donegal), c. 1030.

Highland clans descended from Irish kindreds.

Many of Scottish Highland clans descended from the original three kindreds that migrated to Argyll in the fifth century. From one kindred, Cenel Loairn, descended Clans MacMillan, MacKinnon, MacQuarrie, MacPherson, MacCoul, MacCullough, MacLellan, MacNabb, MacNiven, MacPhee and MacGregor among others. All of these listed clans' progenitors also descended from Scotland's King MacBeth (1040 - 1067AD).

Celts, Norse, Anglo-Saxons and Normans.

Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Norse and Normans invaded the British Isles in turn, as represented in the graphics above. Excepting the Romans, these subsequent invasions were each to make their contribution to the gene pool. Ancestry.com has been tracking millions of DNA submissions from the British Isles. They found Scotland in general has the following ethnic make-up: Celtic 43.84%, Anglo-Saxon 26.18%, Western Europe 13.05%, Scandinavian 7.19% with much smaller amounts of other European ethnicities. The nomenclature is somewhat confusing as Ancestry.com uses "Irish" representing Celts and "British" as Anglo-Saxons. An online article addresses Ireland's ancestry DNA.

In Ireland, these incursions produced little lasting effect outside "The Pale" (Dublin and environs) until the "Plantation" of Ulster in the 17th century. Read more about the Ulster Scots on our Scots-Irish page.

The Scots were Irish.

The Scots were originally "Scotti", a Roman term meaning "bandits" for the Gaelic-speaking Celtic people of Dal Riada who migrated from Northern Ireland to Scotland from 400AD to as late as 1100AD. An article on Scottish History.com provides well-documented details on Dal Riada and the Scotti.

Theirs was a maritime culture, including raiding the western coast of Roman-held Britain for booty and slaves, thus earning the name. St. Patrick was a Roman Briton who, at age 16, was a victim of one of these raids.

Possibly the most important Dalriadic archealogical site is Dunadd, a hillfort that was the capital of Dal Riada. Seen above is a view from the top of Dunadd with a stone in the foreground in which two footprints are carved. It was here kings of Dal Riada were crowned.