Wearing the kilt in Scotland

[Nathan]

I'm a huge history buff and try to learn all I can, but I agree wholeheartedly with Jock, BCAC and figheadair that no good can come of salting old wounds and acting indignant about events that transpired long ago and that may or may not have happened exactly the way history has recorded them.

I remember meeting a piper in university who decided to berate me about how his clan defeated the MacDonalds in a great battle in the late 1400s. He came at me with the zeal of a sports fan who's team just won the championship telling me, "we kicked your clan's @$s".

Nevermind that his clan was allied with some MacDonalds and enemies with others at different times in history. Nevermind that he was being entirely too boorish and aggressive about the whole matter given that we were interacting in the late 1990s. To me, this guy was a windbag. I found his misplaced jingoism extremely distasteful and I suggested he accomplish something with his own life rather than living vicariously through 500 year old victories. I also told him that the best way to bring honour to his clan was to act honourably.

All that having been said, I can't say I didn't have mixed feelings when my 2nd Battalion Nova Scotia Highlanders were rebadged to the name they had in both world wars, the Cape Breton Highlanders. It was a proud day, but also unsettling to know that all of these Clan Donald men would hang up their Clan Donald modern tartan kilts and go back to wearing the old Government sett that Clan Campbell claims as their own. Nonetheless, the kilts got changed, the hatchet stayed buried, and the soldiers got on with the job at hand.