Pubs toast links to ancient king

Source: Agencies  |   2008-6-15  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

FANCY a DNA test with your beer? If it turns up a positive link to an ancient Irish king, you get free drinks.

Two Irish pubs in New York and Ireland are offering the test today in a Father's Day stunt designed to find descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord.

Drinkers who take the test - a simple swab from the cheek that will be sent to Oxford, England, for analysis - can claim free beer and a meal if they are a descendant.

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have found that as many as one in 12 Irish men could be descended from Niall, head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland and forefather of the O'Neills.

"He's a super-father, or a super-ancestor," said Professor Bryan Sykes of Oxford Ancestors, an ancestral DNA testing company affiliated with Oxford University.

Sykes said studies of the Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son, can be used to link descendants of the same man many centuries back. That is how his company Oxford Ancestors will analyze the DNA tests taken on today to identify more of Niall's extended family.

"It is estimated something like two percent of Irish Americans have this, particularly in New York," Sykes said.

The DNA tests will be on offer at McSorley's, one of New York's oldest bars, and Sean's Bar in Athlone, County Westmeath, which claims to be the oldest pub in Ireland.

"This is serious genetic research. To make it less dusty and scientific we decided to involve these two bars," Sykes said.