Quote Originally Posted by OC Richard View Post
But as far as I know Ghillies don't show up in images of men wearing Highland Dress until Victorian times.

Which leaves us with Ghillies being a Revival.

A revival of what? Yes we have a verbal description of Highlanders making their own deerskin moccasins, and we have a survival of something possibly akin to that with the pamutai of the Aran Islanders. And we could throw into the mix the footwear similar to the pamutai which are traditional in the Balkans.

But the Ghillies which seem to appear out of nowhere in the Victorian period aren't like any of those things. They're built-up ordinary shoes, but are open-topped with one to four pairs of tabs holding the shoestrings.
I'm certain I have linked to this page before. The part about the early evolution of the shoe, from the "deerskin moccasins" to what we know today is interesting.

Early 1600’s saw references to ghillie brogues and the name Pampooties. Pampooties are raw-hide shoes, which were formerly made and worn on the Aran Islands of County Galway, Ireland.


In the 17th century the Squirarchy had heels added and merged the styles of the Cuaran and Ghillie. These hardier shoes were ideal for deer stalking, hunting and fishing. Circa 1640 a shawl tongue was added with a fringe to lend a touch of elegance. It was thought Irish landowners started to decorate their shoes with patterned sequence of holes. In the original shoes the holes served a pragmatic purpose i.e. to allow water to flow through. For good luck the designs incorporated coded symbols. As soon as the style became associated with the gentry the holes became more decorative features (Vass & Molnar, 1999). Later when the holes only served for decorative purposes leather uppers were rubbed with melted candle wax (or tallow) to improve waterproofing. The brogue became refined without losing its sturdiness as the style crossed over into main fashion.
So by the mid 1600s we have a shoe with a heel (and I'll assume a sole to mount it to) and with a tongue in it. So why did what became known as the "traditional highland shoe" (the "ghillie brogue") devolve? Why did the tongue get removed? Was it the MacLeay prints? Or was it, as OCR said, the Allen bros. - or someone - deciding & declaring that, in order to be/look "traditional" you need to yank the tongue out of your brogues and wrap the laces around your ankles?