The Old Irish Goat Carries 3,000 Years Of Irish History In Its DNA

Goats tell us how human values changed through time by showing how and where we moved animals through trade or migration.

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Feral Irish Goats around Glendalough, Ireland (Credit: diego_cue / CC BY-SA 3.0)

A recent study reveals that the Old Irish Goat shares a genetic link with domestic goats that lived in Ireland millennia ago. The study, led by University College Dublin and Queen’s University Belfast, suggests that this rare goat breed represents a continuous Irish lineage stretching back 3,000 years to the late Bronze Age.

The Old Irish Goat is a traditional breed developed by early farmers for meat, milk, hair and hides. The Irish goat is currently endangered, with a total population estimated at just 25–30 individuals as of 2019. Although it is a living link to ancient farming communities, the Irish Goat is no longer kept in captivity, and currently can only be found living feral. Both sexes are bearded and horned, and their long hair can be black, grey or white. Due to their long presence in Ireland, these goats are highly adapted to the climate and to life in the Irish landscape.

Irish goats live in family groups (usually fewer than twelve individuals) led by a dominant nanny. The group is composed of adult females, their daughters and their juvenile sons under one year old. Adult males typically live separate from females and kids for most of the year, only joining a group of females during the rutting season.

In summer, the goats consume grasses, sedges, rushes and bilberries. In winter, they eat heather, gorse and shrubs. They also eat bark from the trunks of oak, willow, spruce, a variety of pine tree species and, in coastal areas, they eat seaweed. They freely roam the remote mountains and hills of Mayo, the western slopes of the Ox Mountains, Achill Island and the Mulranny area.

Achill Island — Ashleam / Portnahally Bay & Mountainside Plunging into the Atlantic Ocean. (Credit: Joseph Mischyshyn / CC BY-SA 2.0.)

“There were no goats originally in Ireland; humans likely brought them to the island as part of farming culture, during our Neolithic period roughly 6,000 years ago,” the study’s senior author, palaeogenomicist Kevin Daly, an Ad Astra Fellow, a Conway Fellow and an Assistant Professor at the University College Dublin, told me in email. “Their ancestors were domesticated in southwest Asia, probably in the environs of the Zagros Mountains in western Iran.”

To better understand these goats, Professor Daly and collaborators analyzed ancient remains that had been unearthed at the hillfort at Haughey’s Fort in Co Armagh, dating to around 1100–900 BCE, and from the medieval town of Carrickfergus in Co Antrim (Figure 1).

F I G U R E 1 : Summary of study area, species identifications and molecular sex results. A map of the island of Ireland with the studied assemblages indicated (Haughey’s Fort and Carrickfergus), in addition to the regions in which the Old Irish Goat are primarily found today (Mulranny and Howth, with small feral herds likely found elsewhere across the island). The results of genetic and proteomic assessments of studied specimens are indicated within the tables on the right side of the figure. ? indicates samples for which data was not sufficient for molecular sex determination. Photo credit: The Old Irish Goat Society. (doi:10.1016/j.jas.2026.106516)

Professor Daly and collaborators used radiocarbon dating combined with genetic and protein analyses to confirm that the Late Bronze Age animals are indeed, the oldest goat remains identified in Ireland to date. Comparisons revealed that the ancient animals share their strongest genetic affinity with the critically endangered free-roaming Old Irish Goat population that still clings to survival today (Figure 3).

F I G U R E 3 : Geographical distribution of shared genetic drift (outgroup f3) between ancient Irish goats and modern breeds today. A) Shared genetic drift between a Late Bronze Age goat from Haughey’s Fort, Ireland (Haughey1), and modern domestic goat breeds. B) Shared genetic drift between a medieval goat from Carrickfergus, Ireland (Carrick1), and modern domestic goat breeds. (doi:10.1016/j.jas.2026.106516)

“Combining genetics, proteomics and archaeological science has allowed us a glimpse of our animals hundreds and thousands of years ago — and how their descendants likely still live with us, as part of our biocultural heritage,” Professor Daly said.

This research also uncovered recent genetic changes in these goats. The medieval goats had varied genetic profiles but the modern day Irish Goats show clear signs of inbreeding that is linked to its dramatic population collapse over recent decades (Figure 5). This finding suggests that this genetic bottleneck is a modern phenomenon rather than a historic feature of Irish goat populations.

F I G U R E 5 : Run-of-homozygosity (ROH) analysis of ancient Irish and British goats, and the Old Irish Goat breed today. Each bar represents a genome, stratified by the total Mb amount of genome falling within a ROH/inbreeding tract of a certain length. (doi:10.1016/j.jas.2026.106516)

“This research is a huge milestone for the Old Irish Goat, and provides powerful scientific validation of what local communities and conservationists have long believed — that the Old Irish Goat represents a living piece of our ancient heritage,” said Sinéad Keane in a statement. Ms Keane leads public engagement, media relations, and educational outreach with The Old Irish Goat Society.

Historically known in Irish as an Gabhar Fiáin — the wild goat — this breed was Ireland’s only domesticated goat until about 1900, and thus, is an intimate part of Irish folklore. It has long been recognized as a symbol of resilience, wisdom, and rural life because of these hardy goats’ ability to survive on land with little agricultural or developmental value whilst also producing nutrient-dense milk that made them invaluable to small farmers.

King Puck statue designed by Alan Ryan Hall in 2001 in honour of the Puck Fair festival which takes place in Killorglin every August. (Credit: Eye Ubiquitous / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

The Irish goat is celebrated in one of Ireland’s oldest festivals, the Puck Fair in Killorglin, County Kerry. Every August, a free-roaming goat is captured from the mountains, declared to be “King Puck” and adorned with a crown, and presides over three days of celebration. Although the origins of this festival are lost in time, it reflects the Irish goat’s long-standing association with Ireland’s landscapes and community life.

“Despite thousands of years, changing farming practices, and recent decline, these goats have retained a remarkable genetic connection to their ancestors, and to the island’s agricultural past,” the one of study’s co-lead authors, molecular biologist Jolijn Erven, a postdoctoral researcher at Trinity College Dublin who specializes in population and evolutionary genomics, and animal behavior, said in a statement.

“Goats tend to get overlooked compared to sheep in the archaeological record because it is notoriously difficult to distinguish between their bones. There is an assumption that sheep would have been more important than goats in the past but historical sources suggest that herds of goats may have been kept to supply a trade in skins from ports such as Carrickfergus,” pointed out the study’s other co-lead author, archaeologist Eileen Murphy, a professor at Queen’s University Belfast.

“The advancements in biomolecular and genetic analysis are very exciting, and have now opened up a new opportunity to revisit Ireland’s archaeological and archaeogenetic records, which may in time reveal that Ireland’s early goat history is even richer than currently understood,” said Ms Keane added.

“It also underscores the urgency of protecting this critically endangered breed, which carries within it a living genetic record of Ireland’s ancient past.”

Tragically, the original lead author of the study, Judith Findlater, did not live to see it published.

“She was a dedicated archaeozoologist who initiated this collaboration by reaching out to me several years ago, and was incredibly successful at sleuthing out goat bones from sheep, a notoriously difficult task,” Professor Daly told me in email. “This research is only possible because of her work.”

Portions of this study were part of Ms Findlater’s Ph.D. research on Medieval Carrickfergus.

Source:

Judith Findlater, Jolijn A. M. Erven, Alex Siekmann, Valeria Mattiangeli, The Vargoats Consortium, Eileen Murphy and Kevin G. Daly (2026). Old goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland, *Journal of Archaeological Science 188:106516 |* doi:10.1016/j.jas.2026.106516

No AI tools were used in the research, writing or editing of this piece.

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Originally published at Forbes.com on 22 March 2026.