Quote Originally Posted by Phil View Post
...the fascination for me has been the significance that the kilt seems to have achieved as a symbol of Irish culture among north Americans when celebrating what they believe to be their ancestry. That it should be associated with green-coloured beer and other strange manifestations of an imaginary created culture does not lend a great deal of credence to the legitimacy of this however...
Once a diaspora has been separated from the homeland for long enough, a lot of things change and evolve. It's not just the Irish either. Apparently the Ren Faire atmosphere of some North American Highland games has equally little to do with practice in Scotland

While the origins of the Irish kilt are historically rooted in the romantic imaginary of the Gaelic revival, I assure you that hypenated-Irish culture abroad is not a figment of your -- or their -- imagination. No more, anyway, than Lowlanders embracing the Highland kilt. Correct me if I'm mistaken, but they have little more history of such than the Irish

Don't get me wrong; I have no misgivings towards anyone who would like to wear the kilt

Some people wear the kilt purely for style or comfort, but often people attach more meaning to it. There is a whole sliding scale from myths and legends to thin and misty rationalizations; the marketing machine of the Highland attire industry and imagined communities, national or otherwise; and of course family connections direct or indirect.

I see kilt wearing kind of like Santa Claus. We know rationally that he isn't real and can't fly all over the world in a sleigh pulled by reindeer, but it is fun to believe in him anyway and enjoy Christmas traditions for what they are worth. Thanks to the efforts of our resident historians and experts, Xmarkers should be fairly well educated about kilt history and facts, but that doesn't stop people from all different levels of "legitimacy" from enjoying the kilt.