Conway Mill Trust

Research by scientists and archeologists in several leading universities in Ireland has begun to reveal aspects of lives and genetic traits of the early Irish.  The bodies of three Bronze Age men who were buried on Rathlin Island around 4,000 yrs. ago reveal that one third of their genetic ancestry came from a region around the Black Sea and modern Ukraine and Russia.  Genomes from the men were found to contain genetic traits for the disease ‘haemachromotosis’ which  causes high levels of iron in the blood.  It is so common in the Irish (the highest in the world) it is called “The Celtic Curse”.