It is a known fact that Irish people are famous for their natural red hair, and a few other specific traditional things as well. A great deal of people in Ireland have very healthy, rich and simply gorgeous red hair which many people of other nations could simply envy to. It was estimated that every one of ten modern Irish people has natural red hair, and a few scientific groups studied the reasons contributing to this interesting social phenomena. As one of the studies has shown, not just 10 per cent, but as many as every second person in Ireland carries genes linked to becoming a redhead, regardless of the people being blonde, brunette, or having any other natural hair color. Therefore, the scientists are convinced that natural red hair should be considered a trademark of Irish people.

Recently, the experts of one DNA laboratory of IrelandsDNA organization decided to look closer at the phenomena of Irish red hair. After analyzing the collected materials and studying the issue, they came to the conclusion that natural red hair of Irish people is a result of chronic lack of sunlight in the country. The scientists found out that most of Irish people suffer from a lack of vitamin D linked to chronic scarcity of sunlight. As a response to the problem, the population developed natural red hair. Moreover, the scientists found out that the same tendency and the same links can be found in the people of neighboring Scotland, the land with extremely small number of sunny days in a year and a huge amount of people with natural red hair. According to the estimations of the researchers, Scotland, Ireland, and north Britain are the areas where the concentration of the people with natural red hair is the highest on the planet, and a common lack of sunlight can be blamed for that, the researchers are convinced.

They managed to find out that the people with natural red hair always have very fair skin, which is a great adaptive mechanism to compensate vitamin D deficiency in the body. “The fairer you are, the more vitamin D you can absorb. Red hair is associated with fair skin due to the lower melanin concentration and this has advantages as more vitamin D can be absorbed,” Helen Moffat, one of the study leaders and a leading specialist at IrelandsDNA commented on the findings of her colleagues. That is how people in Ireland, Scotland and the neighboring areas can survive in terms of constant lack of sunlight and high risks of vitamin D deficiency. According to the researchers, the same problem is very common in north Europe. “Scandinavia has perhaps less hours of sunshine but Ireland and Britain are much cloudier so the Vitamin D we get is much lower in comparison to somewhere like Scandinavia where they seem to have more sunshine,” Moffat said.

It is very interesting that according to the theory of the researchers, natural red hair genes actually have origins from the southern countries. It was found out that this gene variant came to the north areas about 70,000 years ago from only two people of Asian origin. After completing their study, the experts of the laboratory created a special innovative test for all parents who want to estimate the chances of having a child with natural red hair. It was found out that in order for kids to have natural red hair, both parents should have special red hair genes, but at the same time, people with red hair gene may not have red hair and have blonde hair or be brunettes. The scientists reported that in modern Europe, the number of people with natural red hair does not exceed 0.06 per cent of the population, which is considerably lower comparing to 10 per cent in Ireland and up to 13 per cent in Scotland. In modern Britain, the amount of people with natural red hair does not exceed 6 per cent.