Tara

All the other info

      Tara (Gaelic for rocky hill) "lived" in Tuscany about 17,000 years ago. She is one of the 7 matriarchs posited by Bryan Sykes in 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' as the clan mothers from whom most Europeans can claim descent. At the time, Europe was in the grip of the last Ice Age and the only parts of the continent where life was possible were the lands bordering the Mediterranean. Then, the Tuscan hills were a very different place. No vines grew; no Bougainvillaea decorated the hiillside farms. Instead, they were thickly forested with pine and birch. The streams held small trout and crayfish, which hepled Tara to raise her family and held the pangs of hunger at bay when the men folk failed to kill a deer or wild boar. As the Ice Age loosened its grip, Tara's descendants moved round the coast into France and joined the great band of hunters following the big game across the tundra that then covered Northern Europe. Eventually, Tara's descendants walked across the dry land that was to become the English Channel and moved right across to Ireland from which Celtic kingdom the clan takes its name.²