The Kilt's use in Irish Nationalism

[MacSpadger]

As for kilts, I just read John Hart's nicely balanced statement on the subject. He is the proprietor of Keltoi, which is one of our sponsors and is also a Canadian who was born in Ireland:
http://www.gaelicclothing.com/irishkilts.htm

Not bad, but again I see Bede's early medieval myth being stated as historical fact.

The Highlanders are largely descended from the Irish Scotii who migrated to Scotland from Ireland in the 4th-6th Centuries.

[Nick the DSM]

Not bad, but again I see Bede's early medieval myth being stated as historical fact.

I really hate to ask this, but what exactly is Bede's myth? I can't find anything on google about this.

[MacSpadger]

To put it concisely, Bede was a monk living in the North of England in the 700's. He wrote many works, including HISTORIAM ECCLESIASTICAM GENTIS ANGLORUM: LIBER PRIMUS. This contains the line, Scottorum nationem in Pictorum parte recipit, which some people believe refer to the arrival of the Scotts in Pictland from Ireland.

Bede also speaks of the Britons living in Scotand, but everyone seems to ignore that, just like they ignore that the Romans referred to a Scottish tribe as the Scotia in the first century AD. Where Bede got this info from, we don't know. It was unremarked upon until the Medieval period of Scottish History, where it was used to tie in a claim by some royalty/aristocrats/Clan leaders to tie in with the bloodline of Brian Bóruma mac Cennétig, High King of Ireland. Earlier Europeans had done similar family trees to claim descent from Alexander the Great.

A link was made to a notation in the Irish Annals of Tigernach, which states Feargus Mor mac Earca cum gente Dal Riada partem Britaniae tenuit, et ibi mortuus est. (Fergus Mór mac Eirc, with the people of Dál Riata, held part of Britain, and he died there.) However this section of the Annals appears to have been written about 500 to 600 years after this supposed event, and it's been made doubtful that such names existed in their written forms at that earlier time.

Fergus is noted in other books giving him a long lineage, some saying he was decended from King Arthur. Other sources say he was allowed into Britian to help Arthur battle the Picts. The lineage doesn't mention the likes of Ceretic Guletic of Alt Clut, who was a real Scottish king in the 5th century.

However, in 16th century George Buchanan in his Rerum Scoticarum Historia added much, much more to the legend. By now Fergus was fighting the Romans, the Franks and the Picts before becoming King of Scotland. He was eventually killed in battle against Durstus, king of the Picts, and was succeeded by his son Eugenius. However Buchanan says that the Scots came from Scandanavia.

However, the Royal lineage from "Fergus, 1st King of Scotland", was used as proof of Royal blood for a log time, James VI was a "happie Monarch sprung of Ferguse race" and in the Great Gallery at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh there is a series of 89 paintings of the line of kings from Fergus to Charles II of England. It's supposed to be an unbroken line, but there is no basis for the tale. As well as legend placing him as both Irish and Scandanavian, the book of Lismore has a character called Senán son of Gerrgenn who appears to have shared a lot of the events in the life of Fergus.

Today, with archeological and genetic findings, it's all pretty much scattered to the winds. I am no expert on this or anything, I just read magazines.

[Nick the DSM]

Thanks for the post. Interesting...

[CMcG]

I really hate to ask this, but what exactly is Bede's myth? I can't find anything on google about this.

MacSpadger has pointed us to the archeological research of Ewan Campbell (for the article "Were the Scots Irish?", click HERE), who has investigated the myth that the kingdom of Dalriata was created by Gaelic invaders from Ireland. Saint Bede the Venerable's origin story is often used in justifications of Irish kilt wearing: he claimed that the people who founded Dalriata, which formed the early basis for Scotland, came from Ireland.

Campbell has found that there is no archeological evidence in the time period surrounding Dalriata of either large scale migration or elite domination from what is now Ireland. His research has instead lead him to suggest that imposing a modern geopolitical reading of the history of that area is skewing the facts. Rather than an ancient "Irish" invasion explaining the presence of Gaelic speakers in ancient "Scotland," he proposes that there were Gaels in that whole area of Ireland, the Highlands, and the Western Islands since the Iron Age. Dalriata was not formed by pushing out Brittonic speakers; it was formed by uniting Gaelic speakers who were already separated from Brittonic speakers by the Grampian Highland to the west and the wider part of the North Channel to the south. Here is an image from his article:


This re-thinking of history negates any Irish claim to being the origin of the Scots. On the other hand, by not using nationalistic terms and borders that didn't exist in the 4th-5th-6th centuries AD, Campbell provides a picture of a Gaelic region, connected rather than separated by a navigable part of the North Channel. He says that the archeological evidence shows that the culture was not entirely homogenous during the first millenium but had enough contact to share a language and that there was significant exchange.

What this says to me is that the early Irish nationalists' elision of history by attempting to adopt the Highland kilt as Irish national attire has some simple basis in the historical evidence of interconnected Gaelic peoples. This connection is not as strong as the more romantic origin myths would suggest. It is, however, still reasonable; the Gaelic revivalists didn't pick the kilt randomly out of thin air! Yes, yes, the Irish never wore kilts before the Gaelic revival, but the idea is that, had history been different, they might have done as their Scottish brethren did.

Something else Campbell says at the end of his article is that the question then becomes not "where did these people come from?" but rather "what do origin myths say about a people?"

Colin Kidd has a rather interesting article entitled "Gaelic Antiquity and National Identity in Enlightenment Ireland and Scotland." To greatly oversimplify things, he believes that the Enlightenment construction of ancient Gaeldom in Ireland was civil, while the Scottish constructed it as savage. Kidd then gives this as evidence for the eventual success of the Irish nationalism movement and the failure of the Scottish equivalent. If we follow Campbell and Kidd in this, it means that sometimes the stories people tell about themselves have more power than bare historical facts...

[Nick the DSM]

That info really does enlighten me on the situation, thank you.

I'll read more into it.