Origins of the Irish

by J. P. Mallory

Overview

“This major achievement is the best, most gracefully written new study of earliest Ireland… Mallory bravely ponders: how much of Irish culture was a local invention and how much was influenced by neighbors, especially Britain . . . Essential.”—Choice

About eighty million people today can trace their descent back to the occupants of Ireland. But where did the occupants of the island themselves come from and what do we even mean by “Irish” in the first place?

This is the first major attempt to deal with the core issues of how the Irish came into being. J. P. Mallory emphasizes that the Irish did not have a single origin, but are a product of multiple influences that can only be tracked by employing the disciplines of archaeology, genetics, geology, linguistics, and mythology.

Beginning with the collision that fused the two halves of Ireland together, the book traces Ireland’s long journey through space and time to become an island. The origins of its first farmers and their monumental impact on the island is followed by an exploration of how metallurgists in copper, bronze, and iron brought Ireland into increasingly wider orbits of European culture. Assessments of traditional explanations of Irish origins are combined with the very latest genetic research into the biological origins of the Irish.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780500293300
Publisher:	Thames & Hudson
Publication date:	09/19/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	487,961
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

J.P. Mallory is an Irish-American archaeologist, a world expert on ancient linguistics, and Emeritus Professor at Queen's University Belfast. He is the author of In Search of the Indo-Europeans, and coauthor of The Tarim Mummies. He lives in Belfast.

Table of Contents

Preface 6

Introduction 8

Chapter 1 The Origins of Ireland 11

Chapter 2 First Colonists 37

Chapter 3 First Farmers 71

Chapter 4 Beakers and Metal 105

Chapter 5 The Rise of the Warriors 129

Chapter 6 The Iron Age 157

Chapter 7 The Native Version 201

Chapter 8 Skulls, Blood and Genes 215

Chapter 9 The Evidence of Language 243

Chapter 10 The Origins of the Irish 287

Notes 297

Bibliography 306

Sources of Illustrations 317

Index 318

Editorial Reviews

"This major achievement is the best, most gracefully written new study of earliest Ireland. . . . Mallory bravely ponders: how much of Irish culture was a local invention and how much was influenced by neighbors, especially Britain. . . . Essential."

Choice