Dennis M. Wright

With the established patrilineal transmission of Y-DNAwith surnames in Ireland, researchers have for some timesought to find sets of short tandem repeat (STR) markervalues that might identify the great ancient families ofIreland. The distinctive STR signature of oneHaplogroup R1b cluster was identified as

(Wilson, D 2004) and separately and formally(Moore et al 2006) as the(IMH). Wilson also showed the connection of IMHwith the , kings of medieval Ireland, andspecifically descendants of the semi-legendary fifth-century king, Niall of the Nine Hostages. It was laterfound that this cluster is derived for the single nucleotidepolymorphism (SNP), M222, (McEwan, 2006) and wasfirst recognised as the Haplogroup R1b1c7 in the R1b-Tree at ISOGG (2007). The recent identification ofother R1b SNPs has resulted in the R1b1c7 (R-M222)Haplogroup having a different nomenclature in eachsubsequent ISOGG R1b Tree.

Another major dynasty of Ireland was the descendantfamilies of Cas, a semi-legendary king who was born inCE 347. They were known as the orDalcassian families. McEvoy et al (2008) studied 17-marker R1b STR haplotypes looking for patterns ofkinship in Munster and concluded there were nosignificant signatures for the orsepts. This might well be expected if the study onlylooked at markers where the Dalcassian had nodistinctive values.____________________________________________________________

Address for correspondence: Dennis M.Wright,

Received: October 10, 2008; accepted: January 4, 2009

Proper association of signatures with particular clans orsepts requires more markers to be analysed than havebeen commonly used in early, and even very recent,Y-chromosome population studies. Public databaseslike Ysearch, Ybase, Sorenson Molecular GenealogyFoundation (SMGF), and Ancestry.com constitute richhunting grounds for researchers that were not previouslyavailable, providing abundant haplotypes of 25, 37, 43,and 67 markers.

A Dalcassian signature is evident when specific STRmarkers are included in the studied R1b haplotype.Present day possessors of this signature, as found inpublic databases, trace their ancestors primarily to theCounties of Clare, Tipperary and Limerick and manycarry surnames of the Dalcassian families.

In their paper Wilson JF et al (2001) identified a six-marker haplotype that they called the Atlantic ModalHaplotype (AMH). They found the AMH to berepresentative of approximately 90% of the R1b inIreland. With the collection of thousands of R1bhaplotypes in genetic genealogy databases, it has beenpossible to identify the modal values on many moremarkers for the AMH haplotype. For example, themodal values on the first 25 markers commonly offeredby several testing laboratories have been determined andare posted on Ysearch within the ID C7BED and shownin .

In April 2006 Kenneth Nordtvedt noted (Nordtvedt,2006) that a variety of Irish R1b existed that matchedthe AMH except for the unusual features,

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This Irish haplotype differed from the AMH modalvalues shown in on these seven markers. Asummary of Nordtvedt’s original suggestions andsubsequent developments by others has been providedby Desmond (2008).

Building on Nordtvedt’s findings, a search for R1bhaplotypes was undertaken in two public databases,Ysearch and Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation(SMGF).

A third public database, www.ancestry.com, wasconsidered for searching, however, as the origin of theearliest known ancestor is not recorded, this databasewas not useful in the current study.

Since a minimum of eight markers are need for searchesin these databases, the values Nordtvedt had identifiedwere used, together with DYS388 as this marker hasbeen found to generally have the value of 12 for R1b.The search criteria are shown in :

Marker RepeatCount

DYS393 13DYS390 24DYS19 14DYS391 11DYS385 11, 14DYS426 12DYS388 12DYS439 12DYS389i 13DYS392 13DYS389ii 29DYS458 17DYS459 9, 10DYS455 11DYS454 11DYS447 25DYS437 15DYS448 19DYS449 29DYS464 15, 15, 17, 17

Marker RepeatCount

DYS388 12

DYS439 11

DYS459 8,9

DYS464 13,13,15,17

A group of 105 haplotypes were found that fullymatched all seven distinctive marker values, and 191haplotypes in total were found to belong to the cluster,defined as being within a genetic distance of two (GD=2)on these seven markers and up to GD=5 from the AMHon the balance of the 25 markers. Records that occurredin more than one database were only counted once. Theprocess of selecting the 191 haplotypes, and thehaplotypes themselves, is shown in the SupplementalData File.

Ysearch allows the results of 96 Y-STR markers to berecorded and many of the haplotypes identified by thesearch criteria for DYS459, DYS464 and DYS439, havetested to 37, 67 and up to the maximum of 96 markers.When the modal values were calculated for each markertested for the 191 haplotypes in the study and comparedto the AMH modal values, several additional markerswere found to be distinctive for this cluster. These areshown in .

Marker AMHValues

Irish Type IIICluster Values

DYS439 12 11DYS459 9, 10 8, 9DYS464 15, 15, 17, 17 13, 13, 15, 17DYS456 16 15DYS463 22 23DYS557 16 15DYS494 10 9DYS533 12 13DYS636 11 12DYS714 26 25DYS716 26 24

3Wright: A set of distinctive Y-STR values for Gaelic Dalcassian Families

This cluster is being called by geneticgenealogy researchers as two other clusters havepreviously been identified, the NWIrish orYsearch ID M5UKQ and South Irish, Ysearch IDXREMB.

A Ysearch record for the modal values of ,with ID NT4BZ, has been established to facilitatemeaningful searches for cluster haplotypes.

Analysis showed 54% of our sample knew the countryof origin of their ancestor in Europe, and 75% of thesegave their origin as Ireland, 13% Scotland and 11%England. See and . Many of those whoonly knew of colonial origins for their earliest knownancestor, have Irish names, giving further confirmationof the Irish origin of the members of this cluster.

Country NumberIreland 78Scotland 13England 11Europe 2

Of those who gave their origin as Ireland and wheretheir county of origin was known, 26% identified Co.Clare, 23% Co. Tipperary, and 16% Co. Limerick, atotal of 65%, as shown in andThese Northern Counties of Munster have historicallybeen known as “Thomond.” The principal clan ofThomond was the of which O’Brien is theprincipal family.

County NumberClare 11Tipperary 10Limerick 7Cork 6Northern Ireland 2Donegal 2Waterford 1Dublin 1Laois 1Kerry 1Mayo 1Ireland Co Unknown 35Ireland Total 78

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The O’Briens take their name from Brian Boru, HighKing of Ireland, CE 926-1014, and the family wereKings, Princes and Earls of Thomond until the 18th

century.

The history and pedigree of the and theirdescent from Cas, born CE 347, sixth in descent fromCormac Cas, son of Oilioll Olum, King of Munster, isdetailed in

, (O’Hart, 1892). O’Hart further states thatin following generations, as surnames were adopted,many families are patrinomically linked to this line andhe identifies the following families as Dalcassian:

(or "Boland"),

, (or, Hearne,

(now"Downey"),

.

shows the connections of the Dalcassianfamilies listed above to the O’Brien line. If the pedigrees

5Wright: A set of distinctive Y-STR values for Gaelic Dalcassian Families

are correct, then the same Y-STR signature should beevident in each of these families.

The surnames that occur more than once in our sampleof 191 haplotypes are shown in

MacLysaght (1985) says of some of the families that arenot included in :

and are variations of O’Brien,descended from Brian Boru.

: The name of six unrelated septs. It ischiefly found now in the south-west of Munster.One sept was Dalcassian and was seated atLiscannon near Bluff in Co. Limerick.

Surname CountO’Brien/Bryan/Bryant 24Casey 12McCraw/McGraw/McGrath 10Butler 10Crow(e) 5Hogan 5Kennedy/Canady 5Hart 4Cannon 3Kelly 3Lynch 3MacNamara 3Maloney/Moloney 3Welch 3Wright 3Bresnan 2Corbett 2Forbes 2Johnson 2McConnell 2O’Halloran 2Ryan 2West 2

hereditary poets to the O’Briens.

): MacEnchroe, all Crowes in theirhomeland, Thomond, are of native Irish stock, fromClare and Tipperary.

: descended from Ógan, an uncle of BrianBoru.

is from Derry, but O’Hartigan is from thesame Christian name, ‘Art’. This sept is Dalcassian,located in East Clare and North Limerick.

Thomond Kennedys are descended fromCinnéad, a nephew of Brian Boru.

hereditary marshals to the O’Briens.

The more frequently occurring surnames in areeither Dalcassian, as defined by O’Hart (1892), or havea strong connection with Thomond, such as .

Murrough (Morgan) of Ballyphillip, Co.Limerick married Eleanor , daughter of CaptEdward Butler of Bansha, descendant of Thomas Butler,10th Earl of Ormonde. As was often the case, MorganO'Brien took Butler as his surname, probably as part ofhis and his wife’s succession to the lands of Bansha, CoTipperary in 1690.

This may be the link whereby many of the name Butlerhave haplotypes, but Butler was con-sidered non-Dalcassian in the present study.

29% of the 191 haplotypes in the present studybelonged to Dalcassian surnames. The Ysearchdatabase was searched to see what proportion of eachsurname found in the study cluster was .Only those records that recorded DYS459 and DYS464were analysed. For each surname in , thepercentage in Ysearch that were Irish Type III wascalculated and the results are shown in .Similarly, Ysearch was searched for the non-Dalcassiansurnames that were found in our study sample, and thepercentatge in Ysearch that were Dalcassian wasrecorded for each of these surnames as shown in

. Non-Dalcassian surnames with less than threeoccurrences in our study sample were not considered inthis analysis.

Some surnames, including O’Brien and Casey, occur inmore than one county (MacLysaght, 1985), so septswith origins outside Thomond may well have differentY-STR signatures from the

It was also common for followers of Medieval leaders totake their clan leader’s name to show their allegiance

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and so the Y-STR signature of their descendants maywell not match that of their leader. These acts ofallegiance occurred both before and after the use ofsurnames were adopted. For these reasons, many withDalcassian surnames do not have the Irish Type IIIY-DNA signature.

Surnames with the greatest representation in the clusterand with the highest percentage of thesignature are the traditional Dalcassian surnames ofO’Brien/Bryant, O’Casey, McCraw/ McGraw/McGrathand O’Hogan. These four surnames are shown inin .

Surname Total Irish III %MacArthur 3 - -O'Beollan /Boland 2 - -O'Brien/Bryan(t) 68 24 35O’Brennan 9 - -O’Casey 20 12 60MacConsidine - - -O’Cormacan - - -Cosgrave - - -McGraw/McGrath 21 10 48O’Curry 16 - -Eustace 1 - -Glinn/Glynn/Glenn 7 - -Hearne - - -O’Hogan 15 5 33O’Hurley 7 - -O’Kelleher 1 - -O’Kennedy 44 5 11Magan/Maglin - - -MacMahon 6 - -O’Meara - - -Muldowney/Downey 2 - -O’Noonan 1 1 100Power 45 - -Quirk - - -O’Regan 2 - -Scanlan 1 - -O’Seasnain - - -Twomey - - -Total 271 57 21%Total for Four Sur-names Shown in Bold

124 51 41%

Surname Total Irish III %Butler 90 10 11Crow(e) 53 5 9.4Hart 45 4 8.9Lynch 9 3 33Kelly 51 3 5.9Macnamara 4 3 75Maloney/Moloney 14 3 21Welch 10 3 30Wright 95 3 3.2Total 371 37 10%

Many allegedly Dalcassian families are not present inthis cluster, but many such families have no memberswith records in Ysearch.

There are many non-Dalcassian surnames found insmall numbers in the study sample. Some may haveresulted from ancient tribal allegiances and marriageswhere the male takes the female’s family name, as in thecase of Butler and probably also MacNamara.Adoptions and out-of-wedlock situations willundoubtedly have also contributed to this situation.When considered as a percentage of the total entries ofthat name in Ysearch, other than those that have aconnection with the as detailed above, non-Dalcassian surnames are invariably a minorcontribution. See .

Members of the Y-STR haplotype cluster, arefound to be derived for the SNP, M222. No SNP has yetbeen discovered that uniquely defines thecluster. SNP testing of members of this cluster hasshown the cluster to be derived for the SNPs, S116/P312and L21/S145, with all SNPs below L21/S145 beingfound ancestral. These results are shown on the

website – SNP markers. This cluster existswithin the R1b1b2a1a2f* (R-L21*) sub-clade (ISOGG,2009).

An R1b cluster with a distinctive Y-STR modalhaplotype has been identified, which is commonlyreferred to as by genetic genealogyresearchers. It is shown in Ysearch as ID NT4BZ.

7Wright: A set of distinctive Y-STR values for Gaelic Dalcassian Families

This modal haplotype is shown to have its origins in thecounties of Clare, Limerick and Tipperary, thehereditary lands of the and their principalfamily, the O’Brien. The Y-STR signature of the clusteris found in many descendants of the septincluding, O’Brien and its variations Bryan and Bryant,Casey, Hogan, Kennedy, and McGrath.

A set of distinctive marker values has been shown toexist that defines the Y-DNA STR Signature for GaelicDalcassian Families.

The haplotypes used in this study are available in asupplementary data file at:

http://www.jogg.info/51/wright.xls.

Thanks are extended to Dr. Kenneth Nordtvedt whoidentified the initial markers for this R1b cluster in April2006 and pointed to its concentration in Ireland.

The availability of the Ysearch and SMGF databaseswere invaluable in enabling this cluster to be studied.

Irish Type III website – SNP markershttp://www.irishtype3dna.org/SNPMarkers.htm

ISOGG 2007 Y phylogenetic tree, R sub-pagehttp://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR07.html

ISOGG 2009 Y phylogenetic tree, R sub-pagehttp://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpR09.html

Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation Databasehttp://www.smgf.org

Ysearch database (2008)http://www.ysearch.org

Blackall H (2008) The Butlers of County Clare. Clare CountyLibrary web site:http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/coclare/genealogy/butlers/notes.htmSee note 127 on the Butler-O’Brien connection.

Desmond T (2008) South Irish R1b Y-DNA. Website:http://mysite.verizon.net/timdesmond/files/dna_southirish.htm

Irish Type III website – SNP markers. See Web Resources.

ISOGG--International Society of Genetic Genealogy (2007) Yphylogenetic tree, R sub-page (2007 Archive). See Web Resources.

ISOGG--International Society of Genetic Genealogy (2009) Yphylogenetic tree, R sub-page. See Web Resources.

McEvoy B, Simms K, Bradley DG (2008) Genetic investigation of thepatrilineal kinship structure of early Medieval Ireland.

136:415-22.

McEwan J (2006) R1b1c7 Haplogroup M222 SNP aka North WestIrish Variety, IMH and R1bSTR19Irish. Website:http://www.geocities.com/mcewanjc/M222.htm

MacLysaght E (1985)Irish Academic Press Dublin.

MacLysaght E (1991) Irish Academic Press,Dublin.

Moore, LT, McEvoy B, Cape E, Simms K, Bradley DG (2006)

78:334–338.

Nordtvedt K (2006) E-mail to Rootsweb Genealogy-DNA List, 7April 2006:http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/GENEALOGY-DNA/2006-04/1144414111

O’Hart J (1892). Reprinted by Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore,

1976. The pertainent excerpt may be found on-line at:http://www.libraryireland.com/Pedigrees1/OBrienThomond.php

Wilson D (2004) Website http://www.m222.net/R1b1c7

Wilson JF, Weiss DA, Richards M, Thomas MG, Bradman N,Goldstein DB (2001)

98:5078–5083.