Inexpensive kilts in 'Irish' tartan

[Antipodean Celt]

Hello wise ones.

I would like some assistance with my little quandary. I want to get my son and I matching kilts in Irish National tartan (or variant) to get him started into kilt wearing: Irish national as a nod to our Irish ancestry; inexpensive because he is 13 and growing like a weed; matching so he doesn't feel like he is going it alone.

My forays onto the interweb reveal that I can get a Stillwater kilt in House of Edgar's Irish National in acrylic; USA kilts do a casual in their 'Ireland's National' variant in PV; and Heritage of Scotland do an 8 yd in PV in a 'Heritage of Ireland' tartan; all for a very reasonable price.

I guess my problem is that the tartan variants listed above are in my order of preference because they seem to have increasing 'whiteness', if that is a word. I would prefer to get the 8 yd PV kilt at the HoS price, but it is too 'white'.

Any suggestions on whether I can get an inexpensive House of Edgar Irish National 8 yd kilt in PV? I appreciate that I may have to compromise, just thought I would check in with the brains trust first.

cheers

John

[RockyR]

Jerry from Stillwater is the ONLY place you can get the Irish National tartan in non wool cloth (made into a kilt). He has a license agreement with HOE, so he's the sole source.

USA Kilts is the (as of Dec 2012) owner of the copyrighted Ireland's National tartan. Any kiltmaker can order the cloth in wool material from Marton Mills, but the only place where you can get an Ireland's National kilt in NON wool is USA Kilts. (same goes for the "Irish American" tartan BTW... we own the rights to it as of Dec and we NOW weave it in PV cloth).

[Antipodean Celt]

Thanks for the advice Rocky. Much obliged. Cheers, John.

[O'Callaghan]

There are at last count something like 7 or 8 generic Irish tartans, and a fair number of those are actually available. Someone has a eBay store where they sell 'Heritage of Ireland' kilts, and Tartanista, also an eBay store, sells something similar.

OTOH, solid dark green or solid saffron are more authentically Irish than any tartan. Stillwater has saffron, and on eBay there's someone in Pakistan that sells saffron kilts (theirs are only 30 bucks, but shipping from Pakistan is another 30 bucks). Solid dark green is harder to come by - I have one but the vendor seems to have gone bust

[Antipodean Celt]

Thanks O'Callaghan. Very helpful. I will check out tartanista as well. All the best, John.