I heard the same story about the Armada wreck bringing Spanish sailors to Ireland from my parents, but here’s what convinced me that they’re right about the Spanish/ Irish connection. I recently got my dna analyzed from Ancestry. com. I’m predominantly English and Irish and my ancestors arrived in the US 200-300+ years ago. What amazed me was the high percentage of “Iberian” dna-no Italian, Greek, or NA. This tells me that either Spaniards migrated to western Ireland, where the black Irish dominate or there’s truth to that wreck story as absurd as some may find it.
Oppenheimer posits that the Irish in particular and British in general are mostly descended from an ice-age population who lived in the Basque region,
Whether that translates to Irish being ‘Iberian’ I don’t know. However see the Oppenheimer article at
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/mythsofbritishancestry
And the Celtic peoples in Ireland probably came from Spain around 300 B.C., several centuries after the Celtic peoples in Britain (the future Welsh, mainly) came from future France.
There is a significant difference between Celtic ethnicity / genes and Celtic Language. Sometimes called Big C Celtic and little c Celtic.
In general the Language travels a lot faster than the genes and not necessarily in the same direction.
To which are you referring?
I’m wondering what everyone is referring to.