Thanks for this OCR! Knowing what I do about the Irish climate today -- not like it was back "then" -- but I wonder if these shaggy mantles were a reaction to the consistent moisture and rain?

Best,
Jonathan

Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
Looking through Old Irish & Highland Dress just now I found this passage which relates to the topic of the OP somewhat.

In the summary of the section about traditional Irish dress:

Brat or Mantle.

The Dublin Museum example, which probably belonged to a peasant, was made of loose homespun... Some pictures, however, show a cloth with a long nap or pile; and phrases like "shagge rug" and Stanihurst's story of the man who was mistaken for a bear show that a very shaggy cloth indeed must have been used. "Shaggy" is a common epithet for a mantle in old Irish poems...

The manufacture of cloth with a shaggy surface is of great antiquity in Europe... a cloak shaped very like our Irish mantles was found in an internment of the earlier Bronze Age near Kolding in Jutland. This cloak or mantle has its outer side (to quote the handbook)

"hung with innumerable tags of wool, which completely cover it and make it look like a sort of coarse plush."

Cloth exactly answering this description is still made in Hungary and the Balkans where it is worn by shepherds in long capes or sleeveless cloaks very like the Irish mantles. When of a brown colour it quite resembles the coat of a large animal.