Hunting tartan design revisited

[jwrourke]

Well...fellow Xmarkers...I apologize for my previous attempt at soliciting votes on the hunting tartan design. I have gone back to the drawing board on the design of the Rourke-Frew Hunting tartan and decided to stick with one tradition of just changing out the dominant colour to a hunting colour. Below you will see the original Rourke-Frew tartan and the new hunting design beside it. The gold is still prominent but that colour comes from the arms of the O'Rourke's of Breifne and falls in line with our family. Do you think I am on the right track?

[mookien]

... Do you think I am on the right track? ...

I think you are in the sense that you have preserved the motif of the original tartan and largely just changed the colors. But, if I knew nothing about those tartans and was asked to guess which one was the hunting, I would select the leftmost one due to it fall-like colors.

Caution: The above may show more about my ignorance of tartans than your attempts to create a hunting tartan from the original Rourke-Frew, which to me already looks like a hunting tartan. Sorry I can't be more helpful. I suggest that you wait for some of our tartan experts to weigh in.

[Liam]

Yes..... I like it....(but I am far from an expert)

[MacMillans son]

I like them both, but most hunting tartans are NOT the same sett as their original sett, but are both different in sett and color. You can change the shades of color a bit (dark blue to light blue) you can change the thread count a little bit, but by completely changing the colors of the original tartan I think you are kind of on you own. I am not sure you would still refer to it by the original name without adding that it is your version of the original tartan. It is my understanding that it is somewhat frowned upon to create tartans for clans without the chiefs blessing. In the absence of a chief, perhaps a governing clan body or association could provide some input on the practice or preference.

You can imagine the confusion if everyone with the associated surname took it upon themselves to create a tartan and called it by the clan name.

Now, you could likely, as have been done numerous times, base your own tartan on your clan tartan and call it by whatever name you would like (other than the clan name) without much problem. Many tartans are based on a previous tartan with only one or two differences, like adding a red stripe, or a double stripe where originally there was only one etc.

Best of luck!

[jwrourke]

To clarify a bit: The Rourke-Frew (Ontario) tartan - is registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans. I wrote them a quick email asking their advice regarding the hunting variation and this was their response.
"As you are seeking to create a variation of your own existing tartan, there will be no problem just changing the colours but preserving the geometry of the original sett. We would not be so accomodating however if you were intending to create a colour variation on someone else's design! The design would have to be compared against the rest of the Register to ensure that the new colours created a tartan that was 'sufficiently different' to all others already recorded.

I would suggest that the tartan name would need to be 'Rourke-Frew (Ontario) Hunting' to clarify the connection between the tartans, and the rationale should also explain the close relationship of the tartans."