Irish kilt pleated in front?

[OC Richard]

I just came across this image, a guy heavily involved in the Gaelic Revival in Ireland, c1905-1910, wearing an interesting costume including a kilt which appears to be pleated all around. (Either that or he's wearing it backwards, which given the person and situation I tend to doubt.)



Interesting that this Revival kilt style did not survive, and the traditional Scottish style prevailed.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

This isn't really a kilt, per se, but rather an attempt to re-create the look of the leine when worn with a short jacket. This sort of romantic "costuming" was very popular with personages such as Lady Gregory, William and Jack Yeats, George Moore, and the Celtic Dawn movement, but it never really caught on with the less-starry-eyed Irish.

More theatrical costuming than national costume, it has little or nothing to do with the kilt outside of its plethora of mis-placed knife pleats.

[NorCalPiper]

I came across these pics from the Black Raven Piped & Drums web site under their photo history. There are several pics of the pipers wearing this style. Here's one of a few that are shown-
http://www.blackravenpipeband.net/from_1910.html#9

[NorCalPiper]

Another interesting thing I've noticed in the early years photos is that they tie lace around their hose giving a diced effect.......hmmm.

[DRipper]

In those raven piper bands, I noticed that it seemed as if the children had the circular pleating,(possibly due to parents forming them to a "uniform" look through instructions, or preconceptions,) but the Robbie Cowley pic, one good clear one of an adult in kilt, clearly has a solid front apron with a pin on the left side of the apron, John Rooney the drummer, while faded the pic clearly shows a flat apron in the front, so this shows that both pleating styles were present in the same piping group

[OC Richard]

Thanks for linking to those pipe band photos showing similar kilts!

What's sort of funny about those old Gaelic Revival costumes is that they were looking at old images of the traditional pre-invasion Irish dress consisting of brat, leine, agus ionar but they completely mistunderstood how it was constructed.

Perhaps by false analogy with modern kilt, they took the bottom of the leine to be a seperate garment from the rest of the leine (a saffron shirt with large sleeves).

Of course the seperation of the lower part of the kilt from the upper occured in Scotland long after the traditional pre-invasion Irish dress had become extinct.

You can see in these Revival costumes embroidery on the shirt, while the best-known images of the pre-invasion Irish dress often show embroidery on the ionar.

Here's one of the few good images of the traditional Irish dress, from 1521



As obvious as it seems to us today that the skirts hanging down to the knees are part of the shirt, the late 19th century revivalists in Ireland took these images to depict kilts.

[macwilkin]

If you read Matt & I's article on Irish kilts and tartans, there is a reference I found in R.G. Harris's The Irish Regiments to a kilt worn by the Royal Iniskilling Fusiliers in 1927 that was "...the saffron kilt...pleated all around." Unfortunately no photos accompanied said description.

T.

[Pleater]

An additional source of confusion could well be that in folk song and story the long leine (or any gown, man or woman's) when pulled up and bloused over a cord or belt was described as being worn 'kilted up to the knee' as shown in OC Richard's Wilde Irische drawing.

It was associated in the folk tales with leaving home for a long journey, or more rarely with preparation for a fight.

I wonder if it could also apply to the biblical girding of loins. Does anyone know?

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I suspect this may have been due to the fact that these outfits were made by local dressmakers, as opposed to kilt makers, who would have been used to full pleating on women's skirts.

[Morris at Heathfield]

There are other, perhaps less accurate depictions of 16th-century Irish dress where the lower edge of the ionar resembles a short skirt pleated all around. Also, the skirt of the leine is often depicted hanging in folds, if not outright pleats. I suspect those depictions influenced this Gaelic Revival style.

See here for a more modern attempt to recreate the style.