Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany; also called the Celtic nations. These are the regions where Celtic languages are still spoken to some extent.
The Celts once spanned much of western, Eastern and central Europe, but many were either assimilated or wiped out by the expanding Roman Empire. The places we think of today as traditionally Celtic, namely Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
Though both came from the same source, Scottish Gaelic and Irish Gaelic are very distinct from each other. There's some argument about whether they are different dialects of the same language or different languages altogether, but the fact is — they sound very different. Each nation has its own dialect and vocabulary.
Irish is a Celtic language (as English is a Germanic language, French a Romance language, and so on). This means that it is a member of the Celtic family of languages. Its “sister” languages are Scottish, Gaelic, and Manx (Isle of Man); its more distant “cousins” are Welsh, Breton, and Cornish.
The term Celtic is used to refer to persons who trace their ancestry back to one of the present Celtic territories located in the westernmost parts of Europe.
Today, the term 'Celtic' generally refers to the languages and cultures of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany; also called the Celtic nations.
The Celtic peoples have historically lived across mainland Europe stretching from Swizerland and Turkey in the east to Britain and Ireland In the west. They can be defined by multiple physical characteristics such as red hair, blue and green eyes, tartan clothing, and prominent statures.
New research shows that the Irish definitely have their fair share of Viking heritage–in fact, the Irish are more genetically diverse than most people may assume. The Irish have Viking and Norman ancestry in similar proportions to the English.
Since the Enlightenment, the term Celtic has been applied to a wide variety of peoples and cultural traits present and past. Today, Celtic is often used to describe people of the Celtic nations (the Bretons, the Cornish, the Irish, the Manx, the Scots and the Welsh) and their respective cultures and languages.
While Highland Scots are of Celtic (Gaelic) descent, Lowland Scots are descended from people of Germanic stock. During the seventh century C.E., settlers of Germanic tribes of Angles moved from Northumbria in present-day northern England and southeastern Scotland to the area around Edinburgh.
Historians teach that they are mostly descended from different peoples: the Irish from the Celts, and the English from the Anglo-Saxons who invaded from northern Europe and drove the Celts to the country's western and northern fringes.
Scotland and Ireland are close neighbours, and it is no surprise that commercial ancestral Y-DNA testing and the resulting hundreds of Y-DNA Case Studies conducted at Scottish and Irish Origenes have revealed lots of shared ancestry among males with Scottish or Irish origins.
What is Celtic's Irish connection? An Irish identity has been strongly imbued in the fabric of Celtic ever since the club's foundation in 1887. The club was established by an Irishman, Brother Walfrid, whose goal was to help improve the conditions in which the Irish immigrant population in Glasgow lived.
Where did the Celts come from? Early sources place Celts in western Europe and also occupying land near the headwaters of the Danube River. Their home territories have often been traced to central and eastern France, extending across southern Germany and into the Czech Republic.
They are the Sidhe (pronounced “shee”) – mystical fairy-like people who supposedly inhabited Ireland prior to the arrival of the Celts (the Milesians). The Tuatha de Dannan are credited with naming Ireland.
Celtic Hair Color
The Celts were described as tall and blond, and sources note their children had hair that was gray when they were young that darkened with age.
Nevertheless, the term Celtic to describe the languages and peoples of Brittany, Cornwall and Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man and Scotland was accepted from the 18th century and is widely used today.
The foundation of Celtic, a club with a distinct Irish Catholic identity, was crucial in the subsequent adoption by Rangers of a Protestant, Unionist identity. From around the 1920s onwards Rangers had an unofficial policy of not signing Catholic players or employing Catholics in other roles.
They were also found to have most similarity to two main ancestral sources: a 'French' component (mostly northwestern French) which reached highest levels in the Irish and other Celtic populations (Welsh, Highland Scots and Cornish) and showing a possible link to the Bretons; and a 'West Norwegian' component related to ...
Experts believe that a majority of Irish people have Celtic roots; however, a study published on Thursday found they may also have a great deal of influence from the Vikings, Anglo-Normans, and British.
The “truest” Celtic bloodlines existing today belong to those from the Scottish Highlands, Perthshire, Northwest Scotland and the descendants of the ancient ruling families in Ireland and Wales.
Most of the inhabitants today of the Galicia region of Spain are fair skinned with light blue or green eyes. This is due to the intermarriage of Celts with the Iberian people. One only has to walk around Santiago de Compostella, the capital of the region, to see the difference in skin complexion.
There was no single 'Celtic' genetic group. In fact the Celtic parts of the UK (Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Cornwall) are among the most different from each other genetically.
The Celtic and Slavic people rank among the Icelandic in terms of having the highest percentage of people with green eyes; this eye color tends to appear when one parent has blue eyes, and the other has light brown or hazel eyes.