The Ballycastle Blog: Irish Genealogy and More

The following was contributed by Shay Healy, an Irish relative in Dublin, Ireland. He will be a guest contributor from time to time:

There is a dire need for the government to appoint an independent taxidermist to take the Celtic Tiger, stuff it and put it in the skip at the back of Leinster House. We can make no progress as a country as long as we keep referring to our Celtic history, which has been thoroughly exposed as bogus by gardener-turned-anthropologist, Diarmuid Gavin, in his TV documentary series, Blood of The Irish.

Diarmuid used DNA evidence to confound what we have been believing about ourselves, all these years. He breathlessly told us that fifty-five thousand years ago, the ancestors of the first Irishman, began their journey from the Rift Valley in Kenya,

His findings were so obvious, that he scarcely needed the DNA to prove his thesis. Don’t we all know that any attempt by Irishmen to cohere into a group, always begins with the “rift”…or as it is better known in Ireland, the “split.”

As our ancestors traveled from the Rift Valley, all the way across Europe till they reached the Basque Country of Northern Spain, there wasn’t as much as a single Celt to be seen, not to mention bodhrans or banjos. And there was no such thing as “the craic.”

Our forebears remained in the Basque Country until about 10,000 years ago, when they finally moved on to Ireland, having realized that a good slick advertising campaign about “the mist that do be on the bog” and “friendly Irish staff to greet you,” could yield a handsome turnover of tourists.

But this shocking disclosure that we are descended from the Basques, means that all the Celtic baloney we’ve been peddling recklessly, all this time, is a big, fat lie, worthy of a banker.

Thankfully, fate has not deserted us entirely. In a twist as corny as a country song, it may be that our saviour in this hour of national crisis is none other than pure, sweet, mother-loving, ever-smiling, “howya Josie,” twinkle-eyed Daniel O’Donnell,

According to Diarmuid’s research, Daniel, is descended from the great Irish chieftain, Niall of the Nine Hostages, the man who allegedly kidnapped St. Patrick and brought him to Ireland. If we dump the “Celtic Tiger” tag as quickly as possible and revert to St. Patrick’s as our national saint and the shamrock as our tourist emblem, Daniel can rescue our Irish pride during the transition, by being able to remember the first name of every American tourist who comes to Ireland this year.

And there’s more good news. Bernard Lagat, the Kenyan athletics hero who declared for the United States, last week won the famous Wanamaker Indoor Mile, in New York, for the seventh time and in doing so he equalled the record of our own Eamonn Coghlan, who in his heyday on the American indoor circuit, was known as The Chairman of The Boards.

Lagat was slightly bemused that Eamonn, who traveled to New York for the race, could be so gracious in giving him benediction to equal his record.

“He wanted me to win today. That means a lot. It’s unbelievable, because normally you don’t want someone to take your record.”

While Daniel is busy shaking hands at airports, ferry ports and train stations, what is to stop us sending Eamonn Coghlan to Kenya under the guise of a FAS scheme, to lure future Lagats to declare for Ireland. As long as two or three executives from Fas accompany him, to ensure he wasn’t padding out his expenses, it would be money well spent.

And there’s more good news. Spanish international soccer player, Xabi Alonso was born in Tolosa, in the Spanish Basque country and Didier Deschamps, the French international, was born in Bayonne, which is part of the French Basque country. A smidgin of saliva is all it would take now to establish a player’s Basque-Irishness and a few sturdy Basque players might spare Giovanni Trappatoni the awkwardness he has created for himself by his macho Italiano refusal to pick Andy Reid.

But by far the best news to emerge from Diarmuid’s detective work, is the disclosure of the existence of a cave in The Burren, which provides us with evidence that the first Irish settlers, our Basque ancestors, survived by living in caves. It may not be this year, but the way things are shaping up, by this time next year, we could all be living in caves.

And if you do find yourself living in a cave, in light of this new evidence about our ancestry, make sure there are two ways out of your cave, in case of emergencies. You know what they say about putting all your Basques in one exit.

See more Irish family history articles and lessons learned in earlier posts below and in the archives.