My Ancestors Make Me Proud

I am of largely Irish descent. I think there's some German and Danish, (shh, don't tell the Islamic world. I had nothing to do with those cartoons!!), blood in there too, but mostly Irish. Recently, there was a news article saying that scientists have found that the second most fertile male in the history of the world was a 5th century Irish warlord known as, (and I'm not making this up), Niall of the 9 Hostages, who is responsible for 3,000,000 descendants. I guess that's what taking hostages 9 at a time in the 5th century will get you. These days it gets a visit from the FBI. Not that I would know that from personal experience or anything.

My curiosity peaked, I looked up the most fertile male in the world. Save your jokes, I already thought of them. Anyway, through gene mapping, it seems that the late, great Genghis Khan is responsible in some small, (or maybe large), way, for 10-12 million of the people currently wandering about the planet. Not even an Irish Catholic can complete with that sort of fertility. Although lord knows that my former neighbors, the O'Seamus's, (note I changed the name, but trust me, it was that Irish), certainly gave it a shot with the 14 kids.

The end result is that, while most of the time no one remembers who came in second, (pun intended), I raise a glass of Guinness to a guy who could very well be my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-to the 8th degree grandfather, and say "well done, sir, well done indeed."