Editing Irish Travellers (section)

====Genetic disease studies====
Genetic studies by Miriam Murphy, David Croke, and other researchers identified certain genetic diseases such as [[galactosemia]] that are more common in the Irish Traveller population, involving identifiable [[allele|allelic]] mutations that are rarer among the rest of the community.

Two main hypotheses have arisen, speculating whether:
* the prevalence resulted from marriages made largely within and among the Traveller community,
or
* suggesting shared descent from an [[Founder effect|original Irish carrier]] long ago with ancestors unrelated to the rest of the Irish population.<ref name=Murphy-McHugh-etal-1999-07>{{cite journal |last1=Murphy |first1=Miriam |last2=McHugh |first2=Brian |last3=Tighe |first3=Orna |last4=Mayne |first4=Philip |last5=O'Neill |first5=Charles |last6=Naughten |first6=Eileen |last7=Croke |first7=David T. |date=July 1999 |title=Genetic basis of transferase-deficient galactosaemia in Ireland and the population history of the Irish Travellers |journal=European Journal of Human Genetics |volume=7 |issue=5 |pages=549–554 |pmid=10439960 |issn=1476-5438 |s2cid=22402528 |doi=10.1038/sj.ejhg.5200327 |doi-access=free |url=http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v7/n5/pdf/5200327a.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v7/n5/pdf/5200327a.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live}}</ref>
In their conclusion Murphy, McHugh, ''et al''<ref name=Murphy-McHugh-etal-1999-07/> write that:
:The fact that Q188R is the sole mutant allele among the Travellers as compared to the non-Traveller group may be the result of a [[founder effect]] in the isolation of a small group of the Irish population from their peers as founders of the Traveller sub-population. This would favour the second, endogenous, hypothesis of Traveller origins."<ref name=Murphy-McHugh-etal-1999-07/>{{rp|style=ama|p=553}}

More specifically, they found that Q188R was found in 100% of Traveller samples, and in 89% of other Irish samples, indicating that the Traveller group was typical of the larger Irish population.<ref name=Murphy-McHugh-etal-1999-07/>{{rp|style=ama|p= 552 §discussion}}