Origin of Irish people has links to Middle East

The origins of Irish people owe more to migrants from as far away as the Middle East than previously thought, genetic research suggests.

The findings emerge from the first work to sequence the genomes — genetic codes made up of three billion parts buried in our DNA — of ancient Irish people.

A farmer woman who lived near Belfast 5,200 years ago had dark hair and brown eyes, according to information in her genome which was sequenced by researchers at Trinity College Dublin.