Quote Originally Posted by Andrew Green
. . . just different tartans (many of which are very nice patterns).


For more information you can check out Matt Newsome's site www.albanach.org. He has a number of really well written articles on there.
The tartans also seem to be by and large alternate colorings of Scot tartans. I noticed this a while back and thought (heeh???). Matt Newsome has an article on his site somewhere saying what I've suspected for a while-> MANY Irish and Welsh tartans (not all)= Scot tartans with different colors in same layout.