Fantastic Find: Irish "DNA Atlas"

A year ago The Irish Times published an article about "a new Irish DNA atlas" derived using "DNA samples collected from 196 Irish people whose eight great-grandparents were born within 50 km of each other in Ireland." Here's the project's map as published in the newspaper:

[Thirty genetic clusters have been identified from 2,103 Irish and British individuals. The map shows the geographic origin of 192 Atlas Irish individuals and 1,611 British individuals from the Peoples of the British Isles project, labelled according to the geographic origin of their DNA. Source: The Irish Times]

The study has discovered that "before the mass migration of people in recent decades, there were at least 10 distinct genetic clusters across the country, roughly aligned with the ancient provinces or kingdoms of Ireland." And for the first time genetic evidence of Viking settlement in Ireland was confirmed.

It is hoped that data from the project will improve the diagnosis of genetic diseases, "particularly for illnesses that are prevalent among people with Irish ancestry, including multiple sclerosis, cystic fibrosis and celiac disease."

The article included a link to the original study which was published by the journal Scientific Reports.

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