Irish kilt books

[O'Callaghan]

Coming from a predominantly Irish-American neighborhood in Chicago and being wowed as a young child by the Stock Yard Kiltie Band, I'd like to point out that the only time I've ever seen anybody who lays claim to Irish heritage wear a kilt is when they've either been in a pipe band or the odd few college age types that show up for the St. Patrick's Day Parade here. That's it. Not like I ever see anybody in a kilt ever turn up in one or another of the many Irish bars hereabouts...I guarantee that if you did, the first question would be, "Where's your bagpipes?" or "Who died?", the latter on the assumption that you were playing the pipes at somebody's funeral. If you said that you didn't play the pipes, you'd get a whole big load of sh*t from the locals, most of whom will be wearing jeans and t-shirts with the occasional tweed flat cap or maybe Irish fisherman's sweater thrown in.

Mention the Trinity Irish Dancers and I think of the Irish Dance groups that we had in my old neighborhood (circa 1960's) and how much abuse the boys, who did wear simple navy blue kilts, jackets and ties back then, got from everybody in the school. (Okay...kids will be like that...but these were the kids from the Good Old Irish Families of the neighborhood so you'd think that there'd be a little slack cut.)

Now...I only lay that all out because I'd love to know why the Irish emigres and their descendants who started these pipe bands chose to go with the kilt as a uniform...or, in fact, why they even decided to go with bagpipes...since both the pipes and the kilt are associated with the Scots. There were brass bands in the Ireland that the emigres left...why not brass bands instead of pipe bands? Friend of mine ran a music store hereabouts a few years ago and I suggested that we might form a tin whistle and bodhran marching band for the South Side Irish Parade...seemed like it might be more authentic.

So I'm curious about why the Irish Americans adopted Scottish dress and instruments. I think that a lot of the association of the Irish with the kilt is tied to the pipe band thing. Any opinions?

Best

AA

You're mostly right in what you say about the kilt. However, many Irish nationalists in Ireland did wear plain green and plain saffron kilts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not so much today, but there is a historical basis for it, whatever anyone (even anyone Irish, much less Scottish Americans) tells you.

OTOH, the bagpipes, although heavily associated with Scotland, originated in the Middle East and spread all over Europe. You might think of them as a Scottish instrument, but they don't even use the same scales as any instrument of European origin, but Eastern scales that cause pipers to approximate the right notes for anything not actually written for pipes. They have at least as much connection with Ireland as with Scotland historically. Those same nationalists set up pipebands in Ireland during the same period I refer to above, and there is ample evidence of that.

The fact that most Americans associate kilts and bagpipes with the Irish even before they think of Scotland has to do with police and fire department pipebands. These same departments tended in the past to be populated with Irish Americans, and they set up pipebands. This annoys the bejesus (a word no Irishman uses) out of Scottish Americans, just as it annoys the bejesus out of them that ethnic Irish have been wearing 'their' kilts for more than a century, as anyone can tell who reads these sort of threads!