The Conway Institute has run the genome of an Irish man for the first time and found a number of unique features, in terms of the single nucleotide polymorphisms and other variants. Not even a sample population, just the one. The report of this study has been written up for genome biology and then announced to the press as evidence of an Irish genome.
Discounting the claims of nationalism that accompany the announcement, where it becomes one genome for all of the Irish, this achievement serves to signpost the interaction of nation and genome. Is it that the smaller the nation, the more important this achievement becomes?
The work that has been done already confirms that there is a distinctive and shared genetic heritage across the islands:
Major genetic surveys of Ireland and Britain have established that the gene pool of both islands is amongst the least diluted in Europe. The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of the ancestors of the Irish and British people were the pioneering settlers who arrived at the end of the last ice age between 17,000 and 8,000 years ago. The inescapable upshot of this is that the Irish are not Celts, any more than the English are Anglo-Saxons.
In fact, both the Irish and the British are Basques, with the Irish significantly more Basque than our neighbours across the pond, who've absorbed more migrations from Europe over the centuries.
An advancement, but not the distinction that publicity would have us believe.