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# Niall of the Nine Hostages
- URL: https://thedailyeudemon.com/3783/
- Published: 2006-01-29T15:16:12.000Z
- Updated: 2006-01-29T15:16:12.000Z
- Author: Eric Scheske
- Tags: History, #wpChunk

[I'm always drawn to bits of history that I've never even heard about. This one rings a bell, barely](http://shep.wordpress.com/2006/01/18/the-true-father-of-ireland?ref=thedailyeudemon.com):

> 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. . . .