Kilts, Ireland and Wales

[M. A. C. Newsome]

TechBear, speaking of the late nineteenth century:

It was at this time, as part of these nationalist movements, that the Irish kilt and Welsh cilt first made their appearance, as well as the introduction of Irish tartans.

Regarding Irish tartans, the earliest we can find any solid evidence of the creation and use of Irish tartans is in the 1960s and 1970s (and then largely in either Scotland or North America, not in Ireland itself). The exception to this would be the Ulster tartan, which is an artifact tartan discovered in 1956 (and which may have been the inspiration for the design of other Irish tartans). The Irish county tartans that are so popular today, of course, were designed in the mid-1990s. All this is to say that the Irish tartan phenomenon cannot really be traced back to the late nineteenth century.

And regarding Welsh kilts, I daresay kilt wearing among the Welsh is something one has seen more of in the past few years than ever before. The very first Welsh tartan was designed in 1967 (the Welsh National). Before that, I don't think there really is much evidence for the Welsh using the kilt as part of any nationalist movement.

Regarding Welsh tartans, McClef writes:

It's difficult to find evidence of it before the 1970s when the most famous Welsh tartan was designed - the Brithwe Dewi Sant.

This tartan was actually designed in 2002 by Sheila Daniels for the Welsh Tartan Centre in Cardiff -- the same company responsible for the recent design of all the Welsh family tartans. Maybe you are confusing this tartan with the Welsh National designed in 1967 I mentioned above?

Lastly, Phil writes:

In Scotland kilts were not worn as daily attire and still are not to this day

I assume you are referring to the late nineteenth century specifically, but as you did not give a time frame for the above statement in your post, it could be read as an assertation that the kilt was never worn as daily attire and was always conceived of as more ceremonial dress. Certainly by the end of the nineteenth century it had become ceremonial dress for the great majority of Highland kilt wearers, but it's origins are, of course, as an every day garment. I just didn't want anyone to misread the above and get the wrong idea.

Aye,
Matt

[macwilkin]

Further on the topic of "pan-Celtic" nationalism, recently I found an interesting snippet of information on the Cornish use of kilts:

In 1903 the Cornish delegate to the Celtic Congress, convening at Caernarvon, was L.C. Duncombe-Jewell, who paraded before the assembly in a wode-blue kilt, to impress upon it the Keltic character of Kernow. In 1963, just sixty years later, when the Celtic Congress met at St Ives, the Keltic audience witnessed the author [E.E. Morton Nance] of this treatise parading on the stage, displaying the prototype of the Cornish national tartan, in the traditional colours of Kernow, attached to the apron of his own Clan Douglas kilt!

-- http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb....section1tartan

The first Manx tartan was designed in 1946 by Patricia Mcquaid, ironically at the behest of the Rt. Hon the Lord Sempill, according to the entry in the Tartan Ferret. Lord Sempill was from Scotland, btw!

Regards,

Todd

[McClef]

This tartan was actually designed in 2002 by Sheila Daniels for the Welsh Tartan Centre in Cardiff -- the same company responsible for the recent design of all the Welsh family tartans. Maybe you are confusing this tartan with the Welsh National designed in 1967 I mentioned above?

It looks like I could be!

It's been a while since I read up on the date of the earliest welsh tartan and its nomenclature and as the St David's is by far the most popular of all I guess, like many others, I assumed it was the oldest.

[Phil]

Lastly, Phil writes:
I assume you are referring to the late nineteenth century specifically, but as you did not give a time frame for the above statement in your post, it could be read as an assertation that the kilt was never worn as daily attire and was always conceived of as more ceremonial dress. Certainly by the end of the nineteenth century it had become ceremonial dress for the great majority of Highland kilt wearers, but it's origins are, of course, as an every day garment. I just didn't want anyone to misread the above and get the wrong idea.

I was specifically referring to my lifetime (the 2nd half of the 20th century) as this is the period I have direct experience of and can verify. Whether there was much kilt-wearing prior to that I can only know from occasional photographs and from older generations. There was a massive influx of Highlanders to Glasgow in the 19th and 20th centuries in search of work, so much so, in fact, that a railway bridge across Argyle Street there was nicknamed "The Heilandman's umbrella" as it must have been a gathering place for them. Link here - http://www.glasgowguide.co.uk/gpages...tralstn2z.html - Undoubtedly many of them would have worn kilts and, as is always the way, an influx of incomers gives way to resentment - hence the "kiltie, kiltie cauld bum" jibes. They would have quickly adapted their dress to that of the rest of the population and merged into society, very much as they also did in the New World where their presence, despite being numerically larger than the Catholic Irish, has never impacted upon their new country in the larger than life way that the Irish seem to have. As to the Ulster Scots, they mainly originated in the Scottish Border counties, names such as Bell, Scott, Armstrong, Douglas etc. and were a troublesome people, constantly raiding their English neighbours who had to build many castles for protection. They were not kilt-wearers, however, and, as a result, no tradition of kilt-wearing was transported with them, first to Ulster and then on to the New World where they exercised their "reiving" skills to survive among hostile peoples. Although there are many links still between Lowland Scotland and Northern Ireland, kilt-wearing is not one of them to this day.
And yes I did mean "mouths" not "moths" although I saw a terrible sight recently in a second-hand shop here where many of the kilts had been chewed to ribbons between the pleats by the little devils.

[macwilkin]

They were not kilt-wearers, however, and, as a result, no tradition of kilt-wearing was transported with them, first to Ulster and then on to the New World where they exercised their "reiving" skills to survive among hostile peoples. Although there are many links still between Lowland Scotland and Northern Ireland, kilt-wearing is not one of them to this day.

Phil,

Historically, I can agree with this statement. I don't think anyone will argue that folks from the Lowlands and the Borders adopted the Highland dress with any great enthusiasm.

However, in recent times, many Ulster Scots have sought to identify more with their connections to Scotland, and you do see more folks in NI wearing kilts, especially as part of pipe bands. I wouldn't say it's a majority of folks, but obviously there are some who see the kilt & tartan as a tangible symbol of their "Scottish" heritage.

Regards,

Todd

[PiobBear]

I'm sure Piobear will chime on in on this as well.

In 1900 Seamas O Ceallaigh of the Gaelic League asked Pádraig Pearse about developing an Irish national dress, perhaps based upon a pair of trews which had been found at Killery, County Sligo dated from about the 16th century in the Royal Irish Academy Collection in the National Museum in Dublin.
On October 26 Pearse wrote:
"...one would at first sight take them for a rather clumsily made and ill-treated pair of modern gentlemen's drawers. Frankly, I should much prefer to see you arrayed in a kilt, although it may be less authentic, than in a pair of these trews. You would if you appeared in the latter, run the risk of leading the spectators to imagine that you had forgotten to don your trousers and had sallied forth in your drawers."
The ancient dress of Ireland was the leine and brat, somewhat resembling a woman's chemise and a horse blanket. As a modern form of national dress, it suffers from the same limitations as the trews in the National Museum. As the Irish leine was traditionally dyed the color of saffron, the color saffron was chosen as the color if the Irish kilt. The saffron kilt first proposed by Pádraig Pearse (who read the Declaration of the Irish Republic on the front steps of the Dublin GPO in 1916), was worn by Bernard FitzPatrick and Pierce O’Mahoney while campaigning for home rule in Parliament in the 1880’s, by Douglas Hyde at his inauguration as the first President of Ireland in 1938, and is worn by the pipers of the Irish Defense Forces and the Royal Irish Regiment today. Distinctively Irish solid color kilts are also seen in dark greens, blues, and reds (solid colors, differentiating them from Scottish tartan kilts), particularly among Irish dancers, at least in the pre-Michael Flatley days (it's good that girls can dance now without bankrupting the family on a fantastically expensive ornate dress; but black trousers are a poor sad substitute for a kilt on a man). That said, hardly anyone in Ireland who isn't in a pipe band ever wears kilts; other than pipers they were never adopted outside of a minority of the Nationalist intelligentsia. There is no evidence of kilts being worn by the Irish, saffron or otherwise, prior to 1900.

[Phil]

Phil,

Historically, I can agree with this statement. I don't think anyone will argue that folks from the Lowlands and the Borders adopted the Highland dress with any great enthusiasm.

However, in recent times, many Ulster Scots have sought to identify more with their connections to Scotland, and you do see more folks in NI wearing kilts, especially as part of pipe bands. I wouldn't say it's a majority of folks, but obviously there are some who see the kilt & tartan as a tangible symbol of their "Scottish" heritage.

Regards,

Todd

I don't disagree, and I think more and more people everywhere identify with your sentiments. There have been pipe bands in Northern Ireland for as long as I can remember and I'm sure long before that too but as someone with family roots in that country I have yet to see any kilt-wearing to this day apart from some weddings. This is not to decry anyone who wants to wear the kilt and, as I think I have said, many Scots have not and still do not wear the kilt either it is really just a statement of fact. Separation both by time and distance can distort the facts sometimes and it is best that the truth be known, even if it doesn't always tie in with assumptions.

[macwilkin]

I don't disagree, and I think more and more people everywhere identify with your sentiments. There have been pipe bands in Northern Ireland for as long as I can remember and I'm sure long before that too but as someone with family roots in that country I have yet to see any kilt-wearing to this day apart from some weddings. This is not to decry anyone who wants to wear the kilt and, as I think I have said, many Scots have not and still do not wear the kilt either it is really just a statement of fact. Separation both by time and distance can distort the facts sometimes and it is best that the truth be known, even if it doesn't always tie in with assumptions.

Phil,

I never said you weren't telling the truth, and again, I am not implying that there are whole villages in Co. Down that wear kilts a la Brigadoon.

However, you made this statement:

Although there are many links still between Lowland Scotland and Northern Ireland, kilt-wearing is not one of them to this day.

Which isn't quite true, given the fact that there is a renewed interest in the links between Scotland & Ulster, which has manifested in the form of pipe bands, Highland dancing, tartans, etc. That was my point.

I am well aware that most Scots do not wear kilts on a regular basis -- a practice that I happen to agree with & defend. You're "preaching to the choir".

T.

[highlander_Daz]

Just a couple of points

the "ban" on Tartan was actually by the British not the English, as it was post act of union. many, many Scots sided with the British forces during the Jacobite upriseing and to portry the banning of Tartan / Highland dress act as an England V Scotland issue is inaccurate in the extreme. Highland culture was vastly different to Lowland culture and Highlanders and their culture were viewed as barbaric and something to be avoided, its Ironic that the Highland symbols are now considered symbols of Scotland, a situation that would have baffled and appalled most lowland Scots around 300 years ago.

Secondly Ive never seen any evidence that the playing of Bagpipes was banned at any stage after the Jacobite upriseing. or indeed at any stage, I understand the argument that the bagpipe is a "weapon of war" but a judge recently ruled that the Bagpipe is no longer a weaopn of war, in a case where a busker was brought before the courts for busking in Hyde park, he argued his pipes were a "weapon of war" rather than a musical instrument, thi argument was thrown out by the judge, however the busker was allowed to played at specific times

[Phil]

Which isn't quite true, given the fact that there is a renewed interest in the links between Scotland & Ulster, which has manifested in the form of pipe bands, Highland dancing, tartans, etc. That was my point.

There has always been strong links between Scotland and Ulster. Until the 1970's when the availability of cheap holidays, increasing incomes and the beginnings of civil unrest, large swathes of the population of Scotland decamped to Irish towns like Portrush and Newcastle for their summer vacation and many had relations there too who they visited. Sadly these are now verging on ghost towns and there has been a shift in links towards football support, decided, of course, along sectarian lines. I was truly shocked to see that this poison in our society was now flourishing over there, a huge change from 20 years previously. They even put on separate ferries across to Scotland to segregate the supporters and it has not been unknown for unfortunate individuals to disappear over the side. Thankfully there has always been Scottish country dancing (my aunt was a keen participant) but I am not sure that the main renewal of interest is an entirely healthy one.