SCIENTISTS in Ireland may have found the countryâs most fertile male, with more than three million men worldwide among his offspring.
The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in 12 Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a fifth-century warlord and head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland.
His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16m descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research.
âItâs another link between profligacy and power,â Bradley said.
âWeâre the first generation on the planet where if youâre successful you donât (always) have more children.â
The research was carried out by PhD student Laoise Moore, at the Smurfit Institute of Genetics at Trinity. Moore, testing the Y chromosome which is passed on from fathers to sons, examined DNA samples from 800 males across Ireland.
The results - which have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics - showed the highest concentration of related males in northwest Ireland, where one in five males had the same Y chromosome.
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