Niall of the Nine Hostages

I'm always drawn to bits of history that I've never even heard about. This one rings a bell, barely:

Research by geneticists at Trinity College Dublin reveals that one in 12 Irishmen are descended from a fifth-century warlord. As David McKittrick reports, science has for once revealed the man to be more impressive than the myth.

He was already a splendid quasi-mythical warrior who trailed clouds of ancient glory, bestriding Irish pre-history as one of the greatest of all the high kings of Ireland. But now Niall of the Nine Hostages has emerged as an even mightier man than previously supposed.

It looks as though he was literally one of the fathers of his nation - a man who, 1,500 years after his death, has up to three million living descendants in Ireland and elsewhere. . . .

Niall of the Nine Hostages was a fifth-century warlord who took on the English, the Scots, the French and even the Romans, at the same time establishing a series of dynasties which lasted for centuries. . . .