[RN7]

I'm amused by the "Celtic" culture that is promoted by some Irish folk as exclusively Irish (a minority but prominent). I'd hate to point out to them that over the centuries the Celts got shoved progressively westward across Europe into Brittany and thence northward across the channel. Their origin? Where half of my bloodlines come from--Central Europe!

I can't recall anyone here stating that "Celtic culture" has been promoted by any Irish people as being exclusively Irish. Also I hate to point out the fact to you that "Celtic culture" has existed in the British Isles since pre-historic times (the 1st Millenium BC), despite the encroachment of the Romans and Germanic peoples into "Celtic" regions of north-western Europe.

Also Brittany got its name from the Celtic Britons who migrated from Britain from the 5th Century AD onwards to western France after the Anglo-Saxon invasion/migration to Britain. The previous name for Brittany was Amorica, and the people who lived their were also Celtic.

The origins of the Celts is unknown. They were undoubtably of a largely north European racial origin, but they were not of a singular racial type. The first development of " Celtic" civilation on the European continent seems to point to a central European origin in the middle of the 1st Millenium BC, but they may have ultimatly originated further east in Russia/Ukraine along with other cultures as there are some parallels with the Scythian culture of Russia and Central Asia.

Also the Celtic origins of the Irish is disputed. DNA links the Irish quite closely with not only the British but the Spanish as well, and the Basques in particular. The so called "Celtic culture" which developed in the British Isles may have been an offshoot of a cultural diffusion from Europe along with some migration by warrior elites and their families and cohorts who gradually dominated the locals. The same thing pretty much happened with the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and Normans to varying degrees.

A large chunk of the other half of me derived from Scandinavian traders, the Rus, whose markets extended downriver from the Baltic, again, into the Caucasus. If my research on my family genealogy is correct, I have a little Teutonic Knight in me. And to top it all off, as I look at my high cheekbones in the mirror, I am left with a suspicion there had been a Mongol in the woodpile several generations back. (They, uh, toured the area several times, ya see.)

The Rus also came to Ireland and Britain about a thousand years ago, in fact they founded most of the towns in Ireland and made a contribution to the Irish gene pool. A lot of people in Ireland and people of Irish origin are tall, blonde with high cheek bones, as am I. Yet my Irish origins stretch back centuries with the exception of an English great grandfather. It has been said by a more than a few people that I look like Dolph Lundgren, but personally I think I'm better looking!