What hat do you wear with a kilt?

[Dale Seago]

The guy in your pic, btw, is not a Scot or a Sikh. Turns out he's an American from Wisconsin, Alexander Haughton Gardner.

Thanks for finding that. What a fascinating character!!

[David Thorpe]

Oh, those flamboyant Cheese Heads.

[creagdhubh]

Oh, those flamboyant Cheese Heads.

Hahahaha! Well said, David!

[CMcG]

I like hats

When I'm not wearing a kilt, I often wear a baseball cap or a flat cap but I feel like those would only work with a more modern look (or Edwardian historical look, perhaps, in the case of the flat cap) and I tend to aim for traditional.

I have a Glengarry that came with some kit I bought on eBay but I've yet to wear it... first of all it looks like it needs a cap badge and second it just has a bit of a regimental/pipeband feel to it... I'm not sure what type of outfit I'd wear it with!

For my usual, traditional, kilt wearing I tend to go bare headed. Even when dressed traditionally, practicality must prevail and for extreme weather, I mix in some less traditional things. If I'm outdoors in the winter (think sub-zero Celsius), I'll throw on a toque or jeep hat with fold down ear covers because they are warm. I'm on the lookout for a summer hat with a wider brim but haven't found anything that both my lady friend and I can agree on.

[Mike_Oettle]

My own preference for wearing with the kilt is the large-size tam-o’shanter I got from Robert Mackie in December. Its cut is military, but the colour is dark green.
I also have a lovat blue knitted beret tam (given to me by an X Marker) and a lightweight beret tam in Black Watch tartan, which I reserve for summer wear.
I used to own a number of deerstalkers, but never wore them with the kilt, and have gone off the style (partly because South African-made deerstalkers fit so badly).
I also own a felt hat (now 42 years old) with a springbok skin band and decorated with white and black ostrich feathers. I wore it when I was a tour guide on an ostrich farm, and will quite possibly wear it with the kilt on hot summer days (once I have restored its shape, since it has gone flat).
Regards,
Mike

[OC Richard]

My own preference for wearing with the kilt is the large-size tam-o’shanter

Me too!

[David Thorpe]

A bonnet with a built-in brim! I like that.

[O'Callaghan]

What is your evidence? No offense or disrespect intended, but I'm not going to blithely change an opinion formed from reputable sources (such as historiographer Magnus Magnusson) on the say-so of some guy on the internet. I'm not seeing how some members of a pipe band are necessarily well-informed about history, either (they may be, again I'm not trying to be belligerent here, but am trying to show why I'm skeptical), so what are their sources? Just because it is simply decoration today (which may well be fact judging from what I've seen) doesn't mean that it is historically correct (which is my contention). Frankly, calling people daft is simply unnecessary, uncalled for, and intentionally rude, and it doesn't help your position one whit to do so, as people are much less likely to lend weight to one who feels the need to lower himself to name-calling in order to "win" a discussion.

Most importantly, people are making far too much stew from one oyster. My original comment stated why I don't wear dicing on my balmoral. Whether or not anyone else wears it for that reason, or even if my reason came from misinformation (which I've consistently stated was a possibility, but merely asked for reliable documentation) changes my reason not a whit. I am of the belief that dicing indicates fealty to England, and I'll not do so. Since it is a widely held belief (whether true or not), it could be read that way, and I choose not to take the chance that it would be so.

I don't doubt that originally a tam and a balmoral may have been the same thing, but if you go to buy one now the tam will be knitted and the balmoral will be felt. Those are the terms that vendors use.

As for dicing, if you look at pics of pipe bands from the Republic, you won't see any of that on their hats. I didn't say they were right about what it means, I just said that's the viewpoint many of them express. No doubt they are aware that you see dicing on the hats of some members of highland regiments and on none of those of their own army.

Yes, I know the official name of the country in English is now 'Ireland', but calling it the Republic is less confusing (the English name has been messed around with several times, whilst in Irish it has always been Saorstat Eirrann = the Irish Freestate).

As for the crown, the British government often describes itself by that term. There are even agencies with that in the name, such as for example the Crown Prosecution Service. It is also used informally based on the practice of stencilling a crown on some items of government property, particularly in the armed forces.

And of course I've been to Scotland. I have cousins there. Everyone I've seen there wears their balmoral like a cowpat, though. We move in different circles.

There's no doubt that the gaels came to Scotland from Ireland and not vicea versa, so forgive me if I doubt that they adopted Scottish hats in Ireland. Doesn't seem likely to me. I concede that the kilt originated in Scotland, although derived from Irish dress, but that's all.

ETA: My reply is really directed to McSpadger

[SeumasA]

Not a very good picture cuz my son was facing the sun when he took it, but this is the hat I wear most of the time.

[MacSpadger]

ETA: My reply is really directed to McSpadger

Oh, don't worry, I got that.

I don't know where you live, but a Tam is still a balmoral or a bunnet or a bonaid here, I have heard that in the US a knitted woman's hat can be referred to as a Tam, but the term Tam over here usually means a khaki balmoral, often shortened to ToS, and is used by the army to this day; nothing to do with knitwear at all. It's easy enough to use Google to verify this.

Dicing-I think there's been enough said about this already.
I worked in the Republic of Ireland for three years, have extended family there and have visited more times than I could count in the last 35 years, I have been involved with pipe bands from there, two of my best friends that I see at least twice a month play for St Laurence O'Toole. I have never heard anyone ever who thought that dicing was in some way connected with support of anything. I have only ever heard this mistaken view expressed in the USA. Fact is with most pipebands in Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, Breton, etc, don't wear dicing. That's just the fashion. I see more pics of pipebands with dicing from the USA than I do from Europe. I presume that's fashion too. I have both musical and organisational experience within the piping world over here going back to 1972, and I have only heard this idea about dicing representing any allegiance in the USA.

As for "cowpats", we obviously move in different circles as my experience of being a 52 year old Scotsman born and bred in Scotland kind of puts me in the opposite direction to your view. I see balmorals at angles 99.9% of the time.

BTW, the whole idea of the Gaels populating Scotland from Ireland comes from a legend, and evidence shows that there was a constant flux of peoples going back and forth, settling and moving on, all around the area. The early Medieval trend for Origin Myths was laid down by Bede, but this too has been discussed so many times on here I can't really be bothered to repeat it all.

Even if the Gaels did invade Scotland from Ireland around 501 as per the Annals of Tigernach, (Which are described here, along with the phrase (The record in the Annals has given rise to theories of invasions of Argyll from Ireland, but these are not considered authentic), that's still one thousand years before the bonnet was being worn in Scotland and one thousand one hundred years before Irish history books, not me, state that the caubeen was an adaptation of the Scottish bonnet by Owen Roe O'Neill, but as the history of the Irish Rangers says, "Who so ever began to introduce an Hibernian dress seems to have leaned heavily on Caledonian custom. The bonnet or caubeen does not seem to figure largely in Irish history and, indeed, a portrait (now lost) of Owen Roe O'Neill wearing what we would recognise as a caubeen circa 1610 is chiefly remarkable in that 'such a cap does not appear in any other Irish picture and may have been adopted from association with the Highland MacDonalds of Co Antrim". By 1992 the caubeen, and equally the kilt, had become the standard dress of the Irish piper. Scottish custom seems also to have been followed, from 1919, in the striking of large versions of the cap badge for wear by pipers on their caubeens. From being a purely piper's item of dress the caubeen was adopted for all ranks of the London Irish Rifles, The Royal Ulster Rifles in 1937 and by the North Irish Brigade in 1948.

As far as I am aware, the "Irish caubeen" as we know it today began to be worn by the Irish Guards pipers and London Irish pipers, (both based in London, obviously), during the Great War when bagpipes were taken up by them for the first time under orders of Hercules Pakenham. They were in imitation of, and taught by, the Scots Guards and the London Scottish repectively.

I'm sure you will agree this is much later than the medieval legend regarding supposed events in 501AD and therefore events in the legend are unlikely to have had much effect on 20th century headgear. I am trying to be specific to events here, and not give blind opinion. I can't see any way at all that the kilt is derived from "Irish dress" and again this is an opinion that I only seem to encounter in the US, but of course we have been down this road before too, and it gets rather sair on the feet after a while.