www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall I Am Secretly a Celtophile

This is a good day to make a public confession: although I am one part Byzantine Slav and one part Italian Roman Catholic I am actually a Celtophile at heart! What I mean is that I love all things Celtic - the ancient monasticism, saints, Celtic crosses, artwork, calligraphy, music. Many people claim to be "Irish for the day" but since my affinity runs so deep I wonder if I may actually have Irish ancestry? Would anyone like to comment on this? I have heard that the Celts sojourned into Slavic lands many centuries ago. Perhaps that's the connection. Am I alone in feeling this way?

I'll pray for your cure!
Stephanos I
One who sojourned there for a long long time.

All Celt O'Philes are at least honorary Irish.

Some may share ancestry in a distant way.

St. Andrew is known as the founder and patron of Churches in the Eastern Mediterranean, throughout what became the Byzantine Empire.

In legend, at least, he planted a cross overlooking the Dnieper River and prophesied the building of a great city there (Kyiv).

He has also become known as the patron Saint of Scotland.

The peoples of Scotland and Ireland have been mixing and moving for many centuries.

There is clearly some kind of cultural link between eastern Christianity and the Celtic peoples.

So you may be Slavic and have a common ancestor with the Irish.



O'Philes are OK!


John

I am ok with it. I have no Irish ancestors, but both sides of my mother's family were Scottish. They came to this region over 200 years ago. So St. Andrew, or St. Patrick - they are both great.

Charles,

We all know that the Scottish are just Irish who got off the boat before the last stop - they just got a wee bit of a fright when they heard the bosun yell 'Scotland, ... next stop - Heaven'

Many years,

Neil

possible but it would be negligible, european genes differ relatively dramatically (but due to breeding with females of common genetic type everyone from Europe looks white) .

In ancient times Galicia was Celtic, indeed that is where the name derives from (along with Galicia in Spain and Galatia in Turkey) the populations were largely dispersed with the "arrival" of the Slavs.

Every person has a gene whats called a mtdna haplogroup, which is a gene directly inherited from ones mother (who gets it from her mother, and her mother gets it from her mother etc)

Those also a similar gene that one gets from the father, and he from his father etc unique to males called the y-haplogroup. There is a clear difference between Western Europeans and Eastern Europeans in this regard.


Now compare the (as I call it) "Celtic" y-haplogroup gene R1b, carried by about 80-95% of Irish, British, French, basques (who unrelated note are closest relatives to ancient Britons which is why some british people have dark complexion), and northern Spaniards

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_tR4bYTcAq...hXfgPcpCk/s1600/r1b-dna-distribution.jpg

to a map of historic habitation of the celts
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/5894/keltearlymap9jw.gif

as you can see they match


Slavs on the other hand are later arrivals from India to Europe than Western Europeans, emerging in written records in around 500AD (though certainly they existed before, probably coming from south asia via central asia between 6,000-18,000 years ago) from the Scythians whom themselves emerged from the mysterious Kurgan mound builders. One can examine the pagan art in ancient Iran and the steppes of south Siberia/Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan was before turkic tribes Iranian Scythians/Kurgan mound builder territory) and find identical matched to pagan Slavic art

now look at the Slavic R1a gene in Europe (if dosent link copy and paste to your search bar)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/archive/7/7b/20100427005205!R1A_map.jpg

here is a world map of the R1a gene
http://rpmedia.ask.com/ts?u=/wikipe...ibution.png/300px-R1a1a_distribution.png

R1a is much newer than R1b, R1b is ancient enough that unlike R1a it has lots of mutations. This allows scientists to match sometimes the exact village your paternal ancestor came from. Not so with R1a, using a basic test I, being R1a with Slavic ancestry, will match exactly with a west bengal brahmin (thats eastern border of india) where as I would not come close period to an Irishman.


oh back to your question, hehe, about 25% of people in galacia are R1b, so you may take comfort that your direct paternal great-grandfather x80 may have been a celt.

Dear Litvin, O.K., so what about my Italian mother having red hair?! There's gotta be a Celt in my family tree somewhere, not only fruits and nuts!

I think they stopped in Scotland because the whiskey was better.

It seems to me that there was a fairly recent discovery (a decade or two ago) that a dark hair Mediterranean and blondes from I forget which group (Scandinavian?) could produce red-headed offspring, even though neither pool could do it independently--retroactively vindicating who-knows how many wives wrongly accused of bearing a child from adultery.

As for my wife, her red hair used to come from Irish genes.

Hey I resemble that remark!

Celtic Toes

Your toes will tell you if you are a Celt!

This article that I'm attaching here doesn't quite accurately describe Celtic toes. Basically, Celtic toes are characterised by the second (and often the third) toes being level with or extending beyond the end of the big toes. In non-Celtic sets of toes the big toe is always well in front of the others which shape away at a sharp angle. If you have Celtic toes you definitely have Celtic ancestry. If you don't, you may still have Celtic ancestry but your toes came from another side of the family tree.

Just for the record, I have Celtic toes, from either my Irish or Cornish ancestry, or both.

Blessings upon your toes, Celtic or otherwise.


You are your own "best evidence"
http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/beth/scottish_genealogy.htm

Father Ambrose:

Father bless!!

What if that's true on one foot and not the other? What does that mean?

Bob

Send photographs.

Any other bodily parts asymetrical?

Being myself fully Irish on both sides of the family, I feel safe in asserting that you are welcome amongst us.

The Celts are not actually a race anyway, although we do have certain aspects of common history and two divisions (the P-Celts and the Q-Celts) of our linguistic commonality.

Come to Ireland and learn Irish.

(An tAth.) Brian O'Ceileachair
Dublin

This conversation has taken a very interesting turn!

Signed,
Anna O'Bunion