This may have been mentioned before. The extract below suggests that R-M222 arrived in Europe with La Tene Culture. This I guess would fit in with the oft quoted opinion of O'Rahilly that they were Belgae from Gaul. See the quotes below and after that a perhaps related query. ## Celtic tribes of the British Isles http://www.buildinghistory.org/distantpast/celtictribes.shtml#surnames ## La Tene Culture ## The Y-DNA haplogroup R1b-M222 is found in Northern Ireland, Lowland Scotland and Northern England and may reflect the arrival of La Tene in Ireland (see Surnames and Y-DNA). The swirling La Tène style continued to develop in Ireland after the Continental heartlands of La Tene and most of Britain were absorbed into the Roman sphere. As Ireland emerged from its centuries-long, climate-induced depression and embraced Christianity, the La Tene style blossomed in such masterpieces as the Book of Kells. .... ## Surnames and Y-DNA ## Both Y-DNA and surnames are handed down from father to son, so could links be found? Early attempts at this approach were perhaps over-hasty in their conclusions. The Y-DNA haplogroup R1b-M222 was initially thought to mark the descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages. It is carried by nearly 20% of the men in Donegal today. In early historic times this was the territory of the northern U' Néill, presumed descendants of the fabled 5th-century warlord. R1b-M222 is particularly common among those with some U' Néill surnames, such as O'Doherty, though not most of the O'Neills themselves. It also appears among the Connachta, supposed descendants of the brothers of Niall. However its concentration among Lowland Scots (rather than in Gaelic Argyll) and northern English suggests that it is centuries older than Niall. 26L.T. Moore, B. McEvoy et al., A Y-Chromosome Signature of Hegemony in Gaelic Ireland, The American Journal of Human Genetics, vol. 78, no. 2 (1 February 2006), pp. 334-338; N.M Myres et al., A major Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b Holocene era founder effect in Central and Western Europe, European Journal of HumanGenetics, (advance online publication 25 August 2010); E.B. O’Neill and J.D. McLaughlin, Insights into the O’Neills of Ireland from DNA testing, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, vol. 2, no.2 (Fall, 2006), pp. 18-26; http://www.familytreedna.com/public/R1b1c7/; J.D. McLaughlin, Ui Neill DNA http://clanmaclochlainn.com/dna.htm. ## So it is more likely to be a La Tene marker, present among the people of north-western Ireland long before the Uu Néill established their dominance there, unrelated to the Uu Néill elite. On a perhaps related track where did La Tene come from? In the URL below is a listing of all ancient European YDNA heretofore. R1b is almost non-existant! There is an instance (2 samples?) from the Lichtenstein Cave in Germany from ca. 1000 BCE. Apart from that there plenty of G2as and I2a, some R1a (in Germany, Russia, and China) but no R1b! We then get 19 samples from the Basque area of Spain dated 500-700 CE. Then another 4 (?) "Merovingian" (?) sample from Ergolding, Germany 670 CE. Ancient Western Eurasian DNA http://www.buildinghistory.org/distantpast/ancientdna.shtml