Ghillie Brogues

[OC Richard]

Revival? Carranes were still about at that point in common use amongst the rural poor, at least in the Isle of Man and it's reasonable to say most likely in Scotland and Ireland at that point. Of course they still had fur on the outside.

I've not seen 18th century or early 19th century images of people wearing Ghillie-like things with Highland Dress. Perhaps I've overlooked them? But all the 18th century images I've seen of men in Highland Dress show ordinary black shoes.

Around the mid-19th century is when Ghillie Brogues first appear in photos of men in Highland Dress. In the photos they appear to be black, while in The Highlanders Of Scotland portraits they're usually tan roughout. (There's only one pair of black ghillies in The Highlanders Of Scotland, and they have buckles.) I've only seen one photo of the rough tan ghillies, which I posted above. Taken together the imagery suggests that they appear in the mid-19th century as rough rural footwear, though popular with pipers in black. By 1900 they've moved indoors, are always shiny black, and often have nonfunctional decorative buckles stuck on.

About Ireland, the pamputai are the traditional footwear of the Aran Islands men:



But as far as mainland Ireland they seem to have disappeared around the 15th century along with the rest of the traditional Irish costume, the brat, leine, and the rest.

The pamputai seem obviously related to the verbal description we have of ancient Highland deerskin shoes, but my impression of Victorian Ghillie Brogues as a revival rather than a survival is due to the lack of the continuing presence of Ghillies in imagery from our earliest images of Highland Dress to the invention of photography in the 19th century. For kilts, sporrans, bonnets, and all the other components of Highland Dress we do have this unbroken consistent presence in imagery.

The Victorian period was a time of revival. Suddenly Book Of Kells style Celtic knotwork decoration appeared everywhere though it had been unpopular or absent from Highland Dress for centuries, dozens of bogus new "ancient" tartans were created and accepted as genuine, fake ancient building were constructed, bogus "ancient" Gaelic poetry was written, and on and on. Knowing about all that stuff make one suspicious of anything that suddenly appears in Victorian times, anything that lacks established provenance in imagery.

BTW this sort of ancient European footwear also survives in the Balkans, the Opanki.



Good eye about the Wilhelm photo! You can see he's wearing the same belts and armour. I do wish we could see his shoes in the earlier portrait. That strengthens my opinion about the rough ghillies being a Victorian revival. Hopefully more old photos will come to light showing earlier ghillies.