Christopher Columbus was Scottish

[Bryan]

I'd also like to say that when archaeologists discovered L'Anse aux Meadows the locals had known all about it for some time, but no-one ever asked them, so I'm told.

Actually, that's not entirely true. The locals did know about the site, but they thought it was an Indian site according to Helge Ingstad.

[Zardoz]

I don't know that much about that Italian fellow, but a lot of reseach indicates the Iceland, Greenland and maybe Newfoundland were visited by Irish as early as 800-900AD.