Quote Originally Posted by O'Callaghan View Post
There's a very simple explanation for the difference in saffron colour. As a plant dye, it does not produce the same colour on different fabrics, and the Irish leine was made of linen, which has notoriously poor dye takeup. So saffron + linen = yellow, and saffron + wool = brownish orangey colour (which actually has a name, it's called 'ruggy' [spelling?]). Of course, modern kilts are dyed with synthetic dyes, not saffron, and cheap ones are not even made of wool, but they approximate the colour of wool dyed with saffron, and if you see someone dressed in a leine to represent the ancient Irish it will be yellow, although it's not dyed with real saffron either, although hopefully it will be linen.
I don't know the answer but I suspect that the tem 'saffron' in connection with the leine possibly dates to the period of the rise of Irish Nationalism and sources such as McClintock’s book. Apart from being very expensive Saffron is a foreign dyestuff and very unstable which is why any group of Buddhist monks will display a variety of shades in their robes which are re-dyed as they fade out. I agree that one or more shades of yellow, probably more brownish-orange than lemon would have been the norm for the leine and there are a host of native dye plants that could have been the source.