I must apologise to all for not giving the sources used to prepare the quiz, although I must admit that I did not expect some to take it quite so seriously! It was based on information contained in several well-known text books on the subject, such as A Short History Of The Scottish Dress, by RMD Grange (a lifelong student of Scottish history and customs); Old Irish & Highland Dress by HF McLintock, widely accepted as one of the world’s foremost authorities and which in the Irish section includes a contribution from Rev F Shaw, at that time Professor of Early and Middle Irish at University College, Dublin; History Of Highland Dress and The Costume Of Scotland, both by J Telfer Dunbar, late Hon. Curator of the Scottish United Services Museum in Edinburgh.

I also took care to ensure that the answers were not chosen because they supported any of my own particular views, but only where there was a unanimous opinion which could be cross-checked using the references and sources supplied by the various authors – we are all currently aware of the dangers of acting on single-sourced information!

As Bear rightly says, there is a great deal of misinformation about the kilt out there. Unfortunately one of the chief pieces of misinformation is that the kilt is a”descendant” of the Irish leine. The leine was generally made from linen and was a one piece long shirt/tunic/smock type garment with head and arm holes, which was put on by pulling it over the head and which reached from the neck to the knee. A cloak/mantle/jacket was then worn on top. Contrast this with the kilt, which is a long piece of woollen material which is firstly part-pleated and wrapped round the waist then the plaid part is wrapped over the shoulder and the whole ensemble worn as an outer garment, and it becomes difficult to see any connection.

It appears that this confusion arose because some Irish writers in the late 1800s/early 1900s apparently mistranslated key words in old documents and erroneously claimed old carvings on ancient tombs etc showed early kilts. Unfortunately one of the chief culprits was allegedly the writer PW Joyce, who was apparently also “technical adviser” to the Irish Government when it decided to identify an Irish National Costume. There has also been the (scandalous) suggestion that Joyce firstly decided that the kilt was Irish then attempted to find “evidence” to support this theory – but if true not exactly the best way to carry out research! However, from the mid-1900s onwards it appears that every author on the subject has concluded that these early writings and carvings actually refer to or show either the leine or a short pleated jacket which was apparently widespread throughout Europe in the 14/1500s, and that all the evidence indicates that the leine is not, never was, and never became, the kilt and that actually there is no historic Irish connection of any kind to the kilt.