Irish Blood Not Mongrels

In this thought-provoking video, we delve into the controversial remarks made by Bríona Nic Dhiarmada, who claimed that the Irish identity has always been one of "mongrels" and hybrids. But what does this mean for our understanding of Irish history and genetics? Join us as we unpack the implications of her statements, examining Ireland's past and the validity of the "melting pot" narrative. We'll explore genetic research, historical migrations, and the contrasting perceptions of diversity in contemporary Ireland. Is the idea of a homogeneous Irish identity a myth, or is it grounded in historical truth? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

#IrishIdentity #Diversity #Genetics #Ireland #BríonaNicDhiarmada #CulturalDebate

Well now, isn't it a grand thing to hear your own people, the Irish, described as mongrels? It's a term that's been bandied about recently, and it's fair to say it's ruffled a few feathers, and rightly so, if you ask me. For some, it's just a colourful way of saying we're a mixed bunch, a nation of blow-ins from the year dot. But for many ordinary Irish men and women, it's a word loaded with insult, a word that cheapens our long and often tragic history.

It's a word that suggests we've no real roots, no core identity to speak of, just a mishmash of whatever washed up on our shores. It's the kind of language that makes you wonder what agenda is being pushed and by whom. The word mongrel, you see, isn't usually a compliment, is it? It's what you call a dog of no discernible breed, a creature of uncertain parentage.

To apply it to a nation, particularly one like Ireland with such a profound sense of its own unique story and heritage, feels deliberately dismissive. It's almost as if some people want to erase the very idea of a distinct Irish identity, to water it down until it means nothing at all. They'll tell you it's all about being inclusive, but you have to ask, inclusive of what? And at what cost to our own understanding of who we are?

It's a backhanded way of saying our past doesn't matter, that we're just a blank slate for any new theory. What's particularly galling for many is the selective application of this kind of language. You don't often hear other ancient peoples with equally complex genetic histories being so casually labelled as mongrels. There seems to be a special enthusiasm for applying this term to the Irish, perhaps because it suits a certain narrative that's being spun these days. A narrative that wants to present Ireland

as always having been a sort of multicultural free-for-all which, as we'll see, is a distortion of the historical and genetic facts. It's a way of softening up the public for the idea that what's happening now with mass immigration is no different to what's always happened. That's a dangerous falsehood. So when this word mongrels is thrown about, it's not just a harmless bit of academic jargon or a poetic flourish. It touches a raw nerve. It speaks to a deeper anxiety about the erosion of Irish identity.

about the attempts to rewrite our history to fit a modern political agenda, it makes people feel that their connection to this island, a connection forged over millennia, is being devalued and denied. And that, to put it mildly, is a very troubling state of affairs for a country that fought so long and hard for its very existence and its right to define itself. We should be wary of those who seek to define us in such a careless, even contemptuous manner,

It was Brianna Nic Diarmada, a producer connected with the government broadcaster RTE, who recently brought this mongrels business to the boil. In promoting a new TV series, grandly titled, she declared that the Irish were always hybrids, always mongrels. She even went further, claiming that this homogeneous Ireland idea, this little Catholic thing, was never the case. Well, that's quite a statement, isn't it?

especially coming from someone involved in a production that's meant to be educating the public about their own history. It sets the alarm bells ringing straight away, making you wonder what version of history we're about to be served up.

The series itself, narrated by the Hollywood actor Colin Farrell and with Professor Jane Ohlmeyer as its historical consultant, promises to use the latest DNA wizardry to show us who we really are. It seems the main thrust, if Miss Nick D'Amato's comments are anything to go by, is to prove this hybrid theory. She even admitted, according to reports, that the series didn't set out to prove this point specifically, but that's what came out.

That's a rather convenient outcome, wouldn't you say? It fits perfectly with the current establishment narrative that wants to dissolve any notion of a core Irish identity that has endured through the ages. Professor Ohlmeyer, whose own background is described as Zambian-born with Ulster Protestant and South African roots, has also been prominent in discussions about Irish identity, chairing seminars on Irishness, blackness, and the early modern world.

She seems to believe Ireland is having a mature conversation about its past, including its role in empire. But some of us might see this conversation as less of a mature discussion and more of a carefully managed re-education program designed to make us accept a version of ourselves that disconnects us from our ancestors and our struggle for nationhood. It's all very convenient for those pushing the globalist open borders agenda.

This push to label us hybrids and mongrels isn't just an academic debate, it has real world implications. It's about shaping public perception, particularly the perception of young people about what it means to be Irish. If we're all just a random collection of DNA from here, there and everywhere, with no defining characteristics or continuous history, then what's to preserve? What's to protect?

It makes it easier to argue that the massive demographic changes we're seeing today are just more of the same, nothing to worry about. But many Irish people who feel a deep connection to this land and its story know in their gut that this isn't the full picture, not by a long shot.

To understand who we are, you have to go back, way back. Long before any talk of Celts or Normans, this island was home to people. The very first settlers arriving perhaps 10,000 years ago, after the ice sheets retreated, were hunter-gatherers. They came by sea, though their exact origins are still a bit of a mystery, lost in the mists of time. These were hardy folks, surviving by hunting wild boar and fishing the rivers, their lives dictated by the seasons and the wild landscape of a newly habitable island.

They left little behind but scattered flint tools and the echoes of their presence in the land itself. Then, around 6,000 years ago, a new wave arrived, the first farmers. These people brought agriculture from the Near East, places like modern-day Turkey, a revolutionary change. They cleared forests, planted crops, and raised livestock, transforming the Irish landscape and society. The RTE series and Miss Nick D'Armada

make much of these early farmers, suggesting they had dark, sallow skin and brown eyes, maybe looking a bit like modern Sardinians. This is used to bolster the we-were-always-diverse argument. But it's important to remember these people arrived thousands of years before the genetic profile we associate with the Irish today really took shape. The builders of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, those magnificent megalithic monuments that still inspire awe, were likely descendants of these early farming communities or a related group.

They created these incredible structures aligned with the stars, showing a sophisticated understanding of engineering and cosmology. Yet for all their monumental achievements in stone, their direct genetic legacy in the modern Irish population appears to be quite limited. It seems their DNA largely faded from the record, assimilated or replaced by later arrivals during the subsequent Bronze Age.

So while they are part of our island's story, they are not the primary ancestors of today's Irish. It's crucial to handle this ancient history with care, not just pick out bits that suit a pre-cooked narrative. To suggest, for instance, that because some early farmers 6,000 years ago might have had a certain appearance, it means modern Ireland's rapid demographic change is just history repeating itself is a bit of a stretch, to put it mildly.

These were tiny populations arriving over vast timescales into an empty or sparsely populated land. It's a world away from the scale and pace of what's happening now, and to equate the two is to play fast and loose with the facts for ideological reasons. The story of Ireland's peopling is complex, yes, but it also has clear patterns.

The real turning point, the period when the genetic foundations of the modern Irish were largely laid down, appears to be the Bronze Age, starting roughly 4,000 to 4,500 years ago. This is what serious genetic research, like the 2015 paper often cited by those who question the always-mongrels narrative, points to. These studies suggest that a new wave of people arrived in Ireland during this era, likely from the Pontic Steppe region of Eastern Europe.

bringing with them metalworking, new farming techniques, and quite possibly the linguistic ancestors of the Irish language. They didn't just mix a little, they seemed to have made a very significant demographic impact.

This research indicates a remarkable homogeneity in the Irish gene pool established around this time, a genetic signature that has shown a surprising degree of continuity right up to the present day. Think about that. A core genetic makeup stretching back 4,000 years, persisting at the western edge of Europe. This doesn't sound like a population of always mongrels, does it? It sounds more like a distinct people who, while absorbing some outside influences over time,

maintained a strong identifiable genetic heritage. This isn't about some mythical pure race nonsense which no sensible person believes in, but about acknowledging a tangible scientifically observable continuity. The studies suggest that later influxes of people like the Vikings or even the Normans, while culturally significant, didn't massively alter this fundamental Bronze Age genetic template on a large scale across the whole island.

The idea of huge population replacements after the Bronze Age isn't strongly supported by the genetic evidence. Instead, it seems more likely that smaller groups arrived, often technical specialists or warrior elites, who then integrated, to varying degrees, with the existing population. The core Irish genome established in the Bronze Age proved remarkably resilient.

This is a key point often overlooked by those eager to paint us as an eternal genetic free-for-all. So when we talk about who the Irish are, genetically speaking, the Bronze Age is a hugely important chapter. It's not the very beginning of the story, but it's where many of the key ingredients that define the Irish people today were brought together and established. This isn't to deny later contributions or regional variations, of course,

But it does challenge the simplistic and, frankly, misleading idea that Irish identity is just a random soup of ingredients with no discernible base flavour. The science itself points to a more rooted and continuous story, a story that deserves to be told accurately, not twisted to fit a fashionable agenda. After the genetic foundations were largely set in the Bronze Age, Ireland wasn't hermetically sealed, of course.

Various groups came, some as raiders, some as settlers. The Vikings, for instance, arrived in the late 8th century, initially plundering, but eventually establishing towns like Dublin, Waterford and Wexford. While they left a mark on our place names and trade, their overall demographic impact on the island's gene pool, outside of these specific urban centres, wasn't as overwhelming as sometimes portrayed.

They were absorbed, intermarried, and in many ways became part of the existing Gaelic fabric over time, another thread woven in. Then came the Normans in the 12th century, a more organized and lasting conquest. Figures like Strongbow brought knights and soldiers, and a new aristocracy was imposed. Yet even their initial numbers weren't enormous. By 1300,

the settler population was estimated at perhaps no more than three or four percent of the total. And what happened to many of these Norman families is famous, adopting the language, customs, and laws of Gaelic Ireland. Families like the Fitzgeralds, Birks, and Butlers became powerful Gaelicized dynasties, a testament to the assimilative power of Irish culture.

The Tudor and Cromwellian plantations from the 16th and 17th centuries onwards were a different kettle of fish altogether. These were driven by a more aggressive colonial agenda, aiming to dispossess the native Irish and replace them with loyal Protestant settlers, particularly in Ulster. This period saw immense suffering, land confiscations on a massive scale.

and deliberate attempts to break Gaelic society. Even then, despite the brutality and the displacement, the settler population in 1700 was still estimated to be only around 5-7% of the total, heavily concentrated in specific areas. The idea of a wholesale population replacement across the island is an overstatement.

What this tells us is that while newcomers did arrive, often with significant political and social impact, the notion that they constantly overwhelmed and remade the Irish population is not quite accurate. For much of our history, the existing Gaelic population with its deep Bronze Age roots remained the predominant demographic element. New arrivals, especially in earlier periods, often assimilated over generations.

The plantations were a more brutal affair, certainly, creating deep divisions. But even they didn't erase the underlying ancient stock of the Irish people. The resilience of that core identity in the face of repeated invasions and settlements is a remarkable story in itself. Being Irish for centuries was about far more than just where your great-great-grandparents happened to be born or what your DNA markers showed.

It was, and for many still is, profoundly tied to a shared culture, a common language, and a collective historical experience. The Irish language was the bedrock. It was the language of poetry, of law, of everyday life for the vast majority. To speak Irish was to be Irish in a very fundamental sense. Even settlers who came to conquer often found themselves or their descendants captivated by it, adopting it as their own.

Think of figures like Geroy de Arla, Gerald Fitzgerald, the third Earl of Desmond in the 14th century, a Norman lord who became a celebrated poet in the Irish language. Or later, men like Piarus Ferreter, Diby Ó Brúadair, and Padrigin Haesed, all of settler stock, who became champions of Gaelic literature even as that world was under siege.

Seithrun Caitin, or Geoffrey Keating, a priest of Old English descent, wrote his monumental history, Foras Feasa ar Éireann, in Irish in the early 17th century, arguing passionately that the descendants of the original Anglo-Norman conquerors had, through shared faith, Catholicism by then, and adoption of the language, become part and parcel of the Irish nation. Faith, particularly after the Reformation, became another crucial marker.

As England became Protestant, Ireland by and large remained staunchly Catholic. This shared religious identity in the face of persecution and plantation became a powerful unifying force for both the Gaelic Irish and the Old English who had assimilated. It distinguished them from the newer Protestant settlers and the colonial administration. This shared experience of oppression for their faith and culture deepened the sense of a common Irish nationhood, a spiritual bond that transcended mere ancestry for many.

It wasn't about exclusion for its own sake, but a shared identity forged in the crucible of history. So when we talk about who became Irish in the past, it was often a process of cultural immersion and shared allegiance. It wasn't just about bloodlines, though kinship and lineage were, of course, important, as they are in any society. It was about embracing the language, the customs, the faith for a long period, and ultimately the fate of the Irish people.

This capacity for assimilation, for making people Irish who weren't born into it, was a strength. But it was assimilation into an existing strong and vibrant Gaelic culture, not the dissolution of that culture into a shapeless, anything-goes hybridity. That's a crucial distinction often missed today.

The idea that Ireland has always been a melting pot, a sort of ancient multicultural paradise where everyone just blended together seamlessly is a rather modern notion and frankly a bit of a myth. It's a comforting story for some, especially those who want to see today's unprecedented levels of immigration as just another chapter in an old book.

But the historical and genetic evidence paints a more nuanced picture. For most of its history, Ireland was characterized more by cultural assimilation into a dominant Gaelic framework, or by distinct communities living alongside each other, rather than a complete and equal blending of all comers. Recent genetic studies, as we've touched upon, actually highlight a remarkable degree of continuity in the Irish gene pool since the Bronze Age.

If Ireland had truly been a constant melting pot with massive continuous influxes from all corners of the globe, fundamentally altering its makeup every few centuries, the genetic picture would look very different.

We wouldn't see that persistent Bronze Age signature that researchers talk about. Instead, what we often see is the absorption of smaller groups into a larger, relatively stable population, or the persistence of distinct groups for long periods. Consider the Normans again. Yes, many assimilated, but it was a process that took generations, and it was assimilation into Gaelic society. They learned the language, adopted the customs, intermarried.

It wasn't that Gaelic society suddenly became half Norman in its essence. Rather, Norman families became Gaelicized. Later with the plantations, the aim was not a melting pot, but a replacement, an attempt to supplant one culture and people with another. Where this failed to happen completely, you often had two communities, settler and native, living in an uneasy, often hostile coexistence for centuries, not a harmonious blend.

This melting pot narrative serves a political purpose today. It's used to downplay the scale and significance of current demographic changes by suggesting it was ever thus.

But this ignores the crucial factors of scale, speed, and the nature of cultural interaction. The slow integration of relatively small groups over centuries into a strong host culture is a world away from the rapid influx of very large numbers of people from vastly different cultural backgrounds into a society whose own native culture has already been weakened by historical forces. To pretend these are the same thing is to be either naive or deliberately misleading.

Ireland was never a global crossroads in the way some port cities or empires were. Now, let's look at Ireland today in 2025. The figures are stark and for many deeply unsettling. We're told that nearly a quarter, almost 25% of the people living in Ireland were born overseas.

That's a monumental shift in a very short space of time for a country that, for most of its history, was more known for its people leaving rather than for others arriving in such vast numbers. To simply wave this away as just like the old days or sure, aren't we all mongrels anyway, is to insult the intelligence of ordinary Irish people who can see with their own eyes the profound transformation happening around them. This isn't about xenophobia as some would have you believe.

It's about a legitimate concern for the future of Irish identity, culture and social cohesion. When a society changes this rapidly, when its demographic makeup is altered so fundamentally in a single generation, it's bound to lead to questions and anxieties. People worry if their children and grandchildren will inherit the same island they knew, if the unique cultural heritage of this island will be diluted to the point of vanishing.

These are not irrational fears. They are human responses to unprecedented change. Comparisons with other countries are sometimes made, but often they are not like-for-like. Some will point to America as a nation of immigrants, but America was founded, for better or worse, on that premise, into vast, largely empty, from a European perspective, territories. Ireland is an ancient nation with a deep, continuous history in a small, defined island space.

To suggest that Ireland should simply follow the path of countries with vastly different historical trajectories is to ignore our own specific context. And when you see articles contrasting Ireland's situation with, say, Zambia, where a tiny foreign minority is the norm, it really brings home how unnatural and historically abnormal the current situation in Ireland is. The worry for many is not about individuals, but about scale and the apparent lack of any real plan or democratic consent for this transformation.

There's a feeling that this is being imposed from above by a political and media class that is out of touch with or even hostile to the concerns of the native population. They promote a narrative that all this change is inherently positive and that anyone who questions it is a dinosaur. But true positivity comes from building on a strong foundation, not from demolishing it in the name of a vague, undefined diversity that often seems to mean the erosion of everything that once made Ireland Ireland.

So where does all this leave us? This debate about mongrels, hybrids, and the very soul of Ireland isn't just academic navel-gazing. It's about the heart of who we are as a people and what kind of future we see for this island. On one side, you have those who champion openness and diversity, sometimes to the point of suggesting that our past identity was too narrow, too exclusive, and that we should embrace a more fluid, globalized sense of self.

They see Ireland's history of absorbing newcomers as a green light for the current, much larger scale transformation. On the other side are those who cherish the deep historical roots, the unique cultural heritage, and the genetic continuity that has, for millennia, defined the Irish people. They see value in a shared sense of belonging, forged through a common history, language, and struggle.

They worry that the current pace and scale of change, coupled with an official narrative that often seems to denigrate or dismiss traditional Irish identity, threatens to unravel something precious and irreplaceable. They argue that a nation that forgets where it came from doesn't know where it's going. Perhaps the truth, as it often does, lies somewhere in navigating the tension between these views. Ireland's history does show a capacity to absorb and integrate new influences.

but it has always done so until very recently at a pace and scale that allowed for genuine assimilation into an existing cultural framework. The Irish identity was resilient enough to incorporate new elements without losing its core essence. The challenge today is whether that resilience can withstand the sheer force of numbers this government are blatantly shipping them in and the ideological drive to dismantle the very notion of a distinct Irish nationhood.

What we can learn from Ireland's long and complex past is that identity is not static, but it also isn't infinitely malleable without consequence. Change is inevitable. But the nature of that change and how it impacts a people's sense of self and their connection to their homeland matters profoundly.

A healthy society needs both roots and branches. It needs to be anchored in its heritage while being open to new growth. The question for Ireland now is whether we can find that balance, or if the desire to be seen as the most progressive place on earth will lead us to discard the very things that made us who we are. Only time will tell, but the conversation, however uncomfortable, needs to be had honestly.