Irish National vs. Ireland's National

**Zardoz** · 20th January 10, 09:31 AM

The Marton Mills Ireland's National is pretty much my favorite tartan. It was the first of many semi-trads I ordered from USA Kits, and continues to be a favorite.

**seanachie** · 20th January 10, 11:04 AM

Originally Posted by Zardoz

The Marton Mills Ireland's National is pretty much my favorite tartan. It was the first of many semi-trads I ordered from USA Kits, and continues to be a favorite.

The tartan looks sharp, that goes without saying, but I like the acoutrements. I like the buttons on the jacket. I just won a nice argyll on an EBay auction, still waiting on it, and I hope to change them buttons out eventually. Very nice sporran as well.

**denmcdough** · 20th January 10, 02:48 PM

Zardoz, thanks for the nice pics. I'm starting to like the Ireland's National more, even though I have a SWK in Irish National. They both have their own special appeal.

I like the comment about "having the best of both worlds"...one for casual and one for dress. Well, I'm going to do that, as soon as I save up some bucks. I just received a tank from Scotland in the IoS. I'm broke now!

Also, in the one pic, do I detect harp buttons on your jacket? They look sharp. My wife made me a Crail jacket for Christmas and used harp buttons, too. Very nice.

**O'Callaghan** · 20th January 10, 05:09 PM

I prefer Irish National because it is a brighter green, but there are other people who prefer Ireland's National for exactly the same reason! I've always liked bright colours, but not everyone does.

Frugal Corner, as well as several eBay vendors, sell Irish Heritage, which is another similar tartan. I wasn't very happy with FC when I bought my solid green kilt, though.

As you say, there is also All Ireland by Locharron, which is quite different, but most people have only seen that in the Green version, and in fact there are Blue and Red versions as well. I believe Rocky commented in another thread that one of his personal kilts is in All Ireland Blue.

None of the above go back very far. The St. Patrick tartan is older than all of them, but even it was only registered in 1971. It has similar colours to most of them, but has large areas of white, which is normal for saint's tartans (as well as for dress tartans). There are several sources for kilts in this tartan, even including Sport Kilt.

There are a couple of other setts that are older than St. Patrick, such as Eire and Special Saffron, but good luck finding them! Burnett and Struth has "O'Saffron", which is actually the tartan of the Canadian Irish Regiment, and is similar to Special Saffron, but is not the same sett. I rather like the look of the Eire tartan, but I don't know where you could find it.

OTOH, Irish kilts in solid green date back to c. 1890, and solid saffron Irish kilts go back as far as 1857, AFAIK.

**Riverkilt** · 20th January 10, 06:27 PM

Got me one of them Ireland's National semi-trads from Rocky too.

Wasn't the choice of tartans for me - was the kiltmaker I chose, and the cloth I chose, "which" Irish fashion tartan was secondary. If Rocky'd offered the Irish National I'd have bought that.

Here's a pleat shot of the Ireland's National from USA Kilts.

**GDub** · 20th January 10, 06:27 PM

Originally Posted by O'Callaghan

I prefer Irish National because it is a brighter green...

Ditto! It's also less "busy"--IMHO, of course. My first kilt was an SWK Irish National standard. I still wear it fairly often and actually like the tartan so much that it's in my top three Irish tartan choices for my next wool kilt.

**OC Richard** · 23rd January 10, 05:57 AM

I really like that Marton Mills Ireland's National. To me it looks more like a traditional tartan, and more formal-looking, than some of the garish bright green Irish tartans I've seen. Some of the bright green tartans look like they should be on a beach towel or summat. (Sorry...I just watched Brassed Off again yesterday...)