Originally Posted by
M. A. C. Newsome
As Todd has pointed out, Irish kilt wearing is a relatively new thing. Most of the settlers of the Ulster plantation, beginning in the early seventeenth century, were Scots (although Lowland Scots and not kilt-wearers). But I suspect that this was the impetus behind the various pipe bands and the like that Todd describes. People in Northern Ireland of Scottish descent wanted to wear the kilt so as to identify themselves as Scottish rather than Irish. Then I guess the Irish were motivated to wear the kilt, as well, as a connection to their "Celtic anscestors." Remember, there was a beleif in the nineteenth and early twentieth century (well some people still have it now) that the kilt was some form of an ancient garment whose origins lay in the misty past of celtic legends. I suspect very few Irish who wore the kilt realized they were wearing a garment that developed in Scotland over the coarse of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
But in any case, kilt wearing in Ireland was never as common as it was in Scotland, has been relatively recent, and most Irish would recognize it as "a Scottish thing."
The trend for the Irish to wear the kilt has increased dramatically in the past decade or so. Prior to the introduction of the Irish county tartans in the mid-1990s, Irish people who wanted to wear a kilt usually wore the solid saffron kilts of the Irish regiments (that Todd has mentioned) or a solid green kilt (green for Ireland). There were a small handfull of Irish tartans, but these were few and far between, and not widely available.
The line of Irish county tartans by The House of Edgar changed the whole perception of the Irish kilt. Keep in mind that these are, strictly speaking, fashion tartans. None of them have ever been officially adpoted by the counties that they are supposed to represent. What we have here is the case of a Scottish tartan company who had the ingenius idea to design, on their own initiative, tartans for every Irish county to open the market for kilts and tartan accessories to a much wider consumer base -- and it has been very successful. Lochcarron of Scotland, around the same time, introduced a line of tartans for the Irish provinces.
There are also some Irish family tartans, some ligitimate, some not. What I mean by this is that some, like the Cian (or O'Carrol) tartan, were designed by the societies representing the families, officially adopted by them, etc. So even though they are recent (the Cian tartan is from 1984) they are legitimate family tartans. Others simply fall into the category of "fashion" tartans (some might even say a hoax!). I hate to say it, but there are some companies out there who, if someone calls and says, "I want a kilt in the O'Fallon tartan" will say, "Sure!" and then proceed to weave up a length of a tartan like MacLean with the red changed to blue and call it "O'Fallon." (I just picked the name O'Fallon here as a fictional example).
Furthermore, the Scottish Tartans Society has recorded a number of Irish family name tartans whose source was the pattern book _Clans Originaux_ from Paris in the 1880s. Well, the Scottish Tartans Authority has recently been able to obtain information about this pattern book from the Pendleton Mill in Oregon (who have the only known copy) and discovered that it contains only your standard Scottish clan tartans and no Irish tartans at all! So where did all these Irish family tartans in the STS register come from??? It's something that is being studied as we speak.
All that being said, there are some traditional Irish tartans. The Ulster tartan, for instance, was found buried on a farm in Ulster and dates from c. 1600. (Note, it is believed that it was Scottish woven cloth). The Connaught tartan is supposed to have been from a sample found in the west of Ireland. But keep in mind that these tartans bear these names because of the locations they were found, not because that is what the Irish originally called them. There is absolutely no indication that the Irish ever had named tartans.
So, all this is to say is that Irish kilt wearing is a recent trend, and if the history or legitimacy of a particular tartan matters to you, do some research and find out the story before you buy.
Aye,
Matt
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